UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 
HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


-      ,.,    :.:,;..;«        ;.       •    ... 


Xincolnics 

familiar  Saving* 

of 
Hbrabam  Xincoin 

Collected  and  £dtted  b? 

t>enn2  Xlevvcllgn  IClUllama 


Dew  l?orh  and  london 

O.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

Ttbe  Knichcrbochec 


COPYRIGHT,  1906 

BY 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Made  in  th=  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE. 

"To  rule  people,"  (says  Professor 
Littre)  "there  is  not  so  much  need  to 
know  what  they  have  done  or  are  doing, 
as  what  they  think  and  how  they  say  it." 
It  would,  therefore,  be  better  to  be  the 
voice  of  the  people  than  their  law-giver 
or  their  song-writer. 

Lincoln  had  many  difficulties  to  con- 
tend with  in  his  early  attempts  as  an  ora- 
tor. He  faced  backwoods  hearers,  he  had 
to  pierce  dulness,  ignorance,  narrowness, 
and  intellectual  blindness.  His  thoughts 
were  purely  his  own,  but  he  was  forced 
to  couch  them  in  everyday  speech — to  use 
the  tongue  of  the  common  people.  His 
points,  proofs,  images,  reasoning,  tru- 
isms were  taken  from  the  familiar  facts  of 
iii 


i*  preface 

daily  life,  but,  being  wrought  upon  by  his 
own  personal  qualities  and  spirit  of  in- 
dependence, they  became  clear,  compact, 
forceful,  and  convincing — a  foil  is  but 
an  iron  rod,  but  becomes  a  sword  in  the 
hand  of  a  fencing  master. 

Lincoln's  Presidential  speeches,  when 
read  aloud,  or  compared  with  the  finest 
literary  efforts,  show  clearly  that  he 
gained  his  secret  spell  from  the  great 
prose  writers.  Any  man  in  the  crowd 
could  read  out  the  Gettysburg  address 
and  all  the  others  would  catch  the  mean- 
ing and  feel  the  mere  melodious  charm. 
The  foreigner  might  thus  make  Lincoln 
intelligible,  while  Adams,  Everett,  or  even 
Webster,  not  to  say  Choate,  would  be  dis- 
cordant or  perplexing. 

Lincoln  proved  that  eloquence  need 
not  be  born  aristocratic  or  college  bred. 
Though  commonplace,  his  similes  were 
nevertheless  satisfying,  explicit,  and  co- 
gent,— plain  but  potent. 

A  German  legend  avers  that  a  treasure 


preface  * 

buried  in  the  Rhine  will  float  up  when  the 
Right  Word  is  spoken.  Lincoln  was  the 
Magician  who  always  spoke  the  Right 
Word,  and  treasures  of  valor,  devotion,  and 
loyalty  were  forthcoming  in  consequence 
thereof.  His  call  to  arms  brought  thou- 
sands in  review  before  "  Father  Abraham," 
and  his  word  sent  them  to  "  charge  with 
a  smile."  His  reference  to  the  "  weep- 
ing widows "  and  "  mourning  house- 
holds," when  the  gigantic  fraternal  duel 
was  ended  and  victor  and  vanquished 
wished  to  unite  to  drive  the  usurper  from 
Mexico,  quelled  the  warlike  spirit,  opened 
the  clenched  fist,  and  folded  it  in  prayer. 

Montesquieu  has  said,  "  Illuminate  his- 
tory by  laws  " — Abraham  Lincoln  irradi- 
ated the  history  of  our  country  by 
scintillations  of  his  wit,  wisdom,  and  tren- 
chant satire,  despite  the  thundercloud 
threatening  to  be  the  pall  of  American 
ambition,  prosperity,  and  brotherhood. 

His  speeches,  addresses,  proclamations 
were  for  the  hosts  and  multitudes;  his 


yi  preface 

sayings  were  spoken  to  the  individual. 
In  youth  he  taught,  and  entertained  his 
rude  fellows,  and  set  them  examples;  as  a 
lawyer,  he  counselled  the  simple  and 
righted  the  injured  widow  and  orphan.  On 
the  eve  of  his  inauguration,  he  delays  to 
bid  farewell  to  his  parents ;  at  the  height  of 
the  war,  he  reads  the  wounded  into  the 
last  sleep  from  his  mother's  Bible.  At 
his  receptions,  he  passes  by  the  office- 
seeker  to  say  a  pleasantry  to  the  humble 
petitioner,  and  men  were  prouder  that 
they  had  cracked  jokes  or  split  rails  with 
"  Honest  Old  Abe  "  than  were  those  who 
had  split  hairs  with  him  in  Cabinet 
councils. 

The  reader  of  this  collection  will  cer- 
tainly cry  out  with  the  man  who  heard 
Shakespeare  for  the  first  time  on  the 
stage:  "How  full  of  quotations!"  for 
few  books  and  periodicals  but  have 
pointed  a  moral  and  adorned  a  tale  with  a 
Lincolnic. 

Never    abstruse,    far-fetched,    or    com- 


preface  vi£ 

plex,  "  plain  as  a  pike  staff "  and  as 
penetrative,  this  colloquially  delightful 
epigrammatist  offers  sentences  apt  and 
terse,  pregnant  with  meaning,  and  "  handy 
to  have  about  the  house "  as  "  Mr. 
Toodles "  says.  They  form  a  sensible 
"  constant  companion,"  a  perpetual  fount 
of  pertinent  application,  relief,  or  inspira- 
tion for  the  desk,  the  lecture-stand,  the 
rostrum,  and  even  the  pulpit,  for  our  mar- 
tyred chief  backed  his  patriotism  with 
piety. 

To  the  life  of  Washington,  Lincoln 
ascribed  a  great  formative  influence  upon 
his  own  life  and  character.  May  it  be 
said  of  the  sayings  of  Lincoln  that  they 
have  helped  to  "  set  the  foot  in  the  right 
place "  towards  the  upbuilding  of  char- 
acter and  true  patriotism. 

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LINCOLNICS 


4  Xincolnicd 

straggler,  supposed  to  understand  Latin, 
happened  to  sojourn  in  the  neighborhood, 
he  was  looked  upon  as  a  wizard."  He 
knew  no  Latin  except  that  found  in  his 
old  copy  of  "  Blackstone,"  and  English 
law  Latin — Obscuris  vera  involvens  ! 

Lincoln's    own  Childish  Horoscope. 

(Scribbled  in  a  blank-book  made  by 
his  hand.) 

"  Abraham    Lincoln 

His  hand  and  pen. 
He  will  be  good  but 
God   knows    when." 

Juvenile  Poetry. 

(Written  1820,  but  it  may  be  a  copy- 
book motto,  then  popular,  and  often  set 
by  the  teacher.) 

"  Good  boys  who  to  their  books  apply 
Will    all    be    great   men    by-and-by." 


Xincolnfc*  5 

Respect  for  the  Eggs,  not  the  Hat. 

In  Lincoln's  youth,  when  his  attire  was 
as  unmodish  as  his  appearance,  he  at- 
tended the  performance  of  an  itinerant 
juggler.  The  latter  produced  a  bag  of 
eggs  and  offered  to  make  an  omelet  in 
a  hat  without  injury  to  the  latter.  The 
trick,  though  dating  back  to  the  Dark 
Ages,  was  new  to  the  spectators  in 
the  village,  but  the  absence  of  hats  pre- 
vented a  ready  tender  of  the  required 
adjunct,  until  Abraham,  urged  forward  by 
the  neighbors,  as  wearing  what  might  pass 
for  a  hat,  handed  up  his  headgear.  It 
was  woolly,  of  low-crowned  and  broad- 
brimmed  shape,  and  had  seen  the  worst 
sort  of  weather.  In  fact,  the  wearer 
apologized  in  these  terms:  "Mister,  the 
reason  why  I  did  not  offer  you  my  hat 
before  was  out  of  respect  for  your  eggs, 
not  from  care  for  the  hat !  " 


6  Xincolnicd 

After  the  Wrong  Man. 

At  one  time  while  Lincoln  was 
engaged  in  chopping  rails,  the  "  bully 
of  the  county"  (Sangamon,  111.),  perhaps 
set  on  by  some  practical  joker,  came  to 
"  the  boys "  in  the  woods  and,  with  set 
design,  challenged  "  the  greeny "  (Lin- 
coln) to  a  fight. 

The  great  brawny,  awkward  boy 
laughed  and  drawled  out:  "  I  reckon, 
stranger,  you  're  after  the  wrong  man.  I 
never  ft  in  my  whole  life."  But  the 
bully  made  for  Abe,  and  in  the  first  fall 
Lincoln  came  down  on  top  of  the  heap. 
The  champion  was  bruising  and  causing 
blood  to  flow  down  Lincoln's  face,  when 
a  happy  mode  of  warfare  entered  his 
original  brain.  He  quickly  thrust  his 
hands  into  a  convenient  bunch  of  smart- 
weed  and  rubbed  the  same  in  the  eyes  of 
his  opponent,  who  almost  instantly  begged 
for  mercy.  He  was  released,  but  his 
sight,  for  the  time  being,  was  extinct. 
No  member  of  the  trio  possessed  a  pocket 


Xincolnica  7 

handkerchief,  so  Lincoln  tore  from  his 
own  shirt  front  the  surplus  cloth,  washed 
and  bandaged  the  fellow's  eyes  and  sent 
him  home. 

John     White,     reprinted     in     Viroqua, 
Wis.,  Censor. 

Making  the  Wool  Fly. 

On  Lincoln's  first  trip  to  New  Orleans 
on  a  flatboat,  he,  and  his  crew  of  one, 
were  attacked  by  negroes  at  Baton  Rouge. 
In  a  brisk  hand-to-hand  resistance,  the 
thieves  were  repelled.  After  their  flight 
Abraham's  companion  regretted  that  they 
had  not  carried  guns. 

"  If  armed,  would  n't  we  have  made 
the  feathers  fly  ?  "  said  he. 

"  The  wool,  you  mean !  "  corrected  the 
other,  "  as  they  were  not  that  kind  of 
black  birds." 

If  You  Hit,  Hit  Hard ! 

On  coming  out  of  a  slave  auction  sales- 
room in  New  Orleans,  Lincoln,  who  had 


8  OLincolntcs 

conducted  a  freighted  flatboat  down  the 
Mississippi  from  Indiana,  remarked  to  his 
crew: 

"If  ever  I  get  a  chance  to  hit  that  thing 
[slavery],  I  '11  hit  it  hard." 

In  a  Whipping,  the  Whip-Hand 
Matters  not. 

When  Lincoln  was  'prentice  to  the 
grocery  business,  at  Thomas  Affut's 
(Offutt?)  store,  1831,  a  customer  used 
language  inadmissible  in  the  presence  of 
*'  ladies."  The  young  man  remonstrated 
with  the  offender,  but  made  voluble  by  the 
potations  he  had  imbibed  (for  the  gro- 
cery on  the  border  was  a  drinking  saloon 
as  well),  he  persisted  in  his  "cuss" 
words.  When  this  language  had  driven 
out  the  ladies,  the  clerk  was  entertained 
with  the  same  Billingsgate,  upon  which, 
getting  his  word  in  at  a  pause  for  breath, 
he  said: 

"  As  you  are  set  on  getting  a  whipping, 
I  may  as  well  give  it  to  you  as  any  other 


Xincolnics  9 

man";  thereupon  he  flung  the  customer 
out-of-doors  (he  is  reported  as  having  on 
a  public  occasion  "  thrown  a  man  ten  or 
twelve  feet "),  and  following  him  up,  gave 
him  a  thrashing.  As  the  delinquent  would 
not  cry  "  quarter !  "  he  rubbed  smartweed 
in  his  eyes  till  he  "  caved  in."  This  smart- 
weed  seems  in  frontier  warfare  to  have 
taken  the  place  of  that  dagger-of-mercy 
with  which  an  obdurate  knight  was 
tickled  when  he  would  not  sue  for  grace. 
It  was  made  use  of  in  another  pugilistic 
exploit  of  our  hero. 

The  Long  and  the  Short. 

When  Lincoln  was  "  keeping  store," 
one  of  the  gossiping  frequenters  of  the 
place  was  a  "  Captain  "  Larkins,  a  great 
boaster.  He  was  as  short  and  stout  as 
the  young  storekeeper  was  tall  and  lean. 
One  day  he  was  declaring  that  he  had  the 
best  and  fastest  horse  in  town.  "  I  ran 
him  three  mile*  in  nine  minutes,  and  he 
never  fetched  a  long  breath." 


so  Xtncolntcd 

Lincoln  looked  down  over  the  bar  on 
the  little  braggart,  and  asked: 

"But,  Larkins,  why  do  you  not  tell 
us  how  many  short  breaths  he  drew  ?  " 

A  New  Military  Command. 

When  Lincoln  was  Captain  of  the 
"  Bucktail  "  Rangers  in  the  Black  Hawk 
War,  1832,  he  was  as  ignorant  of  military 
matters  as  his  company  was  of  drill  or 
of  tactics.  The  test  came  when  his  troop, 
formed  by  platoons,  confronted  a  gate. 
The  Captain  had  no  idea  of  the  proper 
order;  but  his  wit  did  not  desert  him. 
He  ordered: 

"  This  company  is  dismissed  for  two 
minutes,  when  it  will  fall  in,  on  the  other 
fide  of  that  fence!  "  (He  characterized 
this  as  "  an  endwise  "  movement.) 

Even  in  after  years  when  the  Law- 
giver had  to  be  also  Commander-in-Chief, 
he  did  not  pretend  to  any  military  know- 
ledge. 


lincolnfcs  n 

Let  them  Laugh,  if  it  Works  well. 

There  is  preserved  in  the  Patent  Office, 
at  Washington,  unless  it  has  been  re- 
moved to  the  National  Lincoln  Museum, 
a  model,  whittled  out  of  wood,  for  a  de- 
vice to  enable  a  flatboat  to  overcome  vari- 
ous riparian  obstacles.  It  is  of  Abraham 
Lincoln's  invention.  It  was  a  device  of 
the  days  when  he  was  a  legislator  and 
legal  practitioner.  But  before  that,  his 
original  turn  of  mind  had  led  him  in  that 
same  direction.  While  navigating  a  flat- 
boat  of  his  own  building,  in  1831,  on  a 
salt  creek — not  the  Salt  River  of  politi- 
cal renown — Lincoln  fitted  the  craft  with 
sails  made  of  boards  and  canvas,  which 
succeeded  fairly  well  in  saving  the  hard 
work  of  poling,  but  which  excited  the 
merriment  of  the  beholders.  At  Beards- 
town,  the  inhabitants  turned  out  to  line 
the  bank  and  laugh  at  the  apparition. 
Lincoln's  companions  were  annoyed,  but 
he  said: 

"  Let  them  laugh,  so  long  as  the  thing 
works  well." 


xs  Xincolnic*  < 

"An  Old  Woman's  Dance— Short 
and  Sweet."1 

"  My  politics  are  short  and  sweet,  like 
an  old  woman's  dance." 

Maiden    Speech,    Pappsville    or    Rich- 
land,  111.,  1832. 

No   Ambition    so    Great    as    True 
Esteem. 

"  Every  man  is  said  to  have  his  pecu- 
liar ambition.  Whether  that  be  true  or 
not,  I  can  say,  for  one,  that  I  have  no 
other  so  great  as  that  of  being  truly  es- 
teemed of  my  fellow-men,  by  rendering 
myself  worthy  of  their  esteem." 

Speech,   1832. 

"If  Elected,  Thankful;  if  not,  All  the 
Same." 

The  first  of  the  Lhicoln  speeches  in  ao 
tive  politics  runs  thus: 

1  The  Old  World  proverb  is:  "  Short  and  sweet: 
a  donkey's  gallop." 


Zincolnfca  13 

"  Gentlemen  and  Fellow-citizens :  T 
presume  you  all  know  who  I  am.  I  ami 
humble  Abraham  Lincoln.  .  .  .  My  pol- 
itics are  short  and  sweet,  etc.  ...  I  am 
in  favor  of  the  internal  improvement  sys- 
tem and  a  high  protective  tariff.  ...  If 
elected,  I  shall  be  thankful;  if  not,  it  will 
be  all  the  same." 

1832. 

"Better  Sometimes  Right  than  at 
All  Times  Wrong." 

"  I  hold  it  a  sound  maxim  that  it  is 
better  only  sometimes  to  be  right,  than  at 
all  times  to  be  wrong." 

Speech  as  candidate  for  the  Illinois 
Legislature,  March,  1832. 

Action  Speaks  Louder  than  Words. 

Lincoln's  first  speech  in  behalf  of  his 
endeavor  to  enter  the  Legislature  in  1832 
was  made  in  the  summer,  after  an  auction 
sale  at  Pappsville,  111.  Interrupted  by 
a  fight  in  the  audience  and  seeingr  that 


14  Xincolnfcs 

one  of  his  supporters  was  being  "  whip  • 
ped  "  he  leaped  off  the  improvised  ros- 
trum and  seizing  the  victor  flung  him 
"  ten  or  twelve  feet "  from  his  prey.  He 
then  returned  to  finish  his  harangue  amid 
such  applause  as  would  in  the  "  wild 
West "  always  greet  a  manifestation  of 
physical  prowess.1  Hence  when  the  poll- 
ing came,  such  a  master  of  fisticuffs  se- 
cured the  hearty  support  of  the  voters. 

The  Best  Way  to  Efface  Un- 
pleasantness. 

"  Meet  face  to  face  and  converse  to- 
gether— the  best  way  to  efface  unpleasant 
feeling." 

Letter  to  Judge  Berdan,  of  Jackson- 
ville, 111.,  during  the  Lincoln  cam- 
paign for  the  Legislature. 

'The  people  there  and  then  were  of  the  mind 
of  the  boy  in  Punch,  who,  replying  to  the 
maternal  reproach  that  he  was  behind  another 
in  education,  said:  "I  cannot  talk  French  like 
him,  but  I  can  punch  his  head  1 " 


Xfncolntcs  15 

"A  Mighty  Handy  Little  Fellow." 

Lincoln  is  recorded  as  having  said  of 
the  semicolon,  that  it  was  "  a  mighty 
handy  little  fellow." 

"  I  Want  To— The  Worst  Way." 

Lincoln's  first  love  romance  occurred  in 
1833.  He  was  captivated  by  the  village 
belle  of  New  Salem,  111.  She  was  a  Miss 
Anne  Rutledge,  whose  father  kept  the 
tavern.  In  another  two  years,  they  were 
engaged  but  she  died  a  few  months  later. 
The  effect  on  the  suitor  was  profound 
and  appears  to  have  continued  through 
life.1  But,  in  1839,  while  his  friends 
were  seeking  distractions  for  him,  and 
while  he  was  engaged  in  the  practice  of 
law  in  Springfield,  he  met  there  a  Miss 
Mary  Todd.  She  came  from  his  own 
native  State,  Kentucky.  It  is  of  note  that 

1  Those  cruel  romance-breakers,  the  physicians, 
however,  ascribe  the  President's  settled  mel- 
ancholy to  confirmed  dyspepsia,  due  to  the 
insufficient  and  irregular  nutrition  of  his  child- 
hood and  of  the  early  days  of  pecuniary  want. 


16  Xincolnfcs 

his  rival  in  this  suit  was  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  afterwards  his  opponent  in  the 
political  arena.  Miss  Todd  made  the  dis- 
consolate one  a  happy  man  on  the  fourth 
of  November,  1842.  The  wedding  day 
had  first  been  set  for  January,  184-1,  but 
Lincoln  seemed  to  regard  it  as  "a  fatal 
day "  and  it  was  postponed.  Whatever 
the  cause  of  the  delay,  friends  saw  that 
the  swain's  melancholy  required  some  such 
remedy  as  was  to  be  secured  through  the 
vivacity  and  attractiveness  of  the  fair 
Kentuckian,  and  all  were  in  a  harmless 
conspiracy  to  bring  about  the  match. 

One  evening,  at  a  party,1  Lincoln  ap- 
proached Miss  Todd,  seated  among  the 
wall-flowers,  and  timidly  asked  in  his 
vernacular,  which  still  clung  to  him  and 
which  he  retained  for  effective  expression 
through  life: 

"  I  should  like  to  dance  with  you  the 
worst  way  !  " 

1  Lelated  by  General  Singleton,  of  Quincy, 
Illinois,  a  brother  lawyer. 


Xfncolnics  17 

The  invitation  was  accepted,  and  the 
victim  dragged  her  unlicked  bear  cub 
around  with  her  in  the  whirls  of  the  waltz ; 
the  steps  which  might  have  won  claps  and 
whoops  of  applause  on  the  cabin  floor  or 
the  flatboat  deck  not  being  recognized  as 
a  la  mode  in  Springfield  When  the  lady 
was  restored  to  her  companions,  one 
quizzically  inquired: 

"Well,  Mary,  did  not  Mr.  Lincoln 
dance  with  you  '  the  worst  way '  ?  " 

"  The  very  worst,"  was  her  reply. 

It  must  be  credited  to  her  that  she  was 
almost  the  only  person,  at  that  early 
stage,  to  foresee  supremacy  in  the  un- 
couth man  and  to  assert  that  he  would 
one  day  attain  to  high  station. 

A  Lightning-Rod  for  a  Guilty 
Conscience. 

In  the  campaign  of  1836  Lincoln  was 
attacked  at  Springfield  by  an  old  citizen, 
one  Forquer,  who  had  quitted  the  Whigs 
and  had  been  appointed  Land  Office  reg- 
istrar as  if  in  recognition  of  his  apostacy. 


i3  lincolnics 

Mr.  Forquer  had  just  completed  a  new 
house  and  had  placed  on  it  what  was  then 
a  great  novelty — a  lightning-rod.  In  his 
speech,  Forquer  undertook  "  to  take  the 
young  man  down."  The  young  aspirant 
arose  and  replied  as  follows: 

"  Mr.  Forquer  commenced  his  speech 
by  announcing  that  '  the  young  man  was 
to  be  taken  down.'  It  is  for  you,  fellow- 
citizens,  not  me,  to  say  whether  I  am 

up    or   down I    desire   to   live, 

and  I  desire  place  and  distinction,  but 
I  would  rather  die  now  than,  like  this 
gentleman,  live  to  see  the  day  when  I 
would  change  my  politics  for  an  office 
worth  three  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and 
then  feel  obliged  to  erect  a  lightning- 
rod  over  my  house  to  protect  a  guilty 
conscience  from  an  offended  God !  " 

The  Rough  Diamond  Cuts  the 
Polished  One. 

As  has  been  frequently  noted,  men 
without  personal  attractions,  like  Mira- 


Zincolnfcs  19 

beau,  George  Wilkes,  and  others,  have 
succeeded  in  winning  their  way  by  cul- 
tivating the  purely  conversational  or 
oratorical  graces.  This  is  of  great  ad- 
vantage in  those  electioneering  campaigns 
where  the  voters  are  canvassed  man  by 
man.  In  one  of  these  conflicts  Lincoln 
and  his  Democratic  opponent,  L.  D. 
Ewing,  contended  in  company  far  the 
ballot  of  a  prominent  farmer  in  Sangamon 
County.  He  was  not  at  home  when  they 
called  so  the  two  set  to  work  with  the 
"  gray  mare."  But  neither  made  much 
progress  till  milking  time  when  they  both 
started  out  with  her  to  help  with  the  pail 
and  stool.  Arrived  at  the  barn  door,  Mr. 
Ewing  took  the  pail  and  insisted  on 
doing  the  milking  himself.  While  stroking 
the  cow  he  natuially  concluded  he  was 
making  the  master-stroke — for  the  vote. 
But  as  he  received  no  reply  to  the  bits 
of  speech  delivered  at  intervals,  he  looked 
up  finally  only  to  see  the  hostess  and  his 
rival  leaning  on  the  bars  at  ease,  in  arnica- 


20  Xfncolnice 

ble  discussion.  By  the  time  his  task  was 
done,  Lincoln  had  captivated  the  voter's 
better  half  and  all  that  the  other  gleaned 
for  his  kindness  was  hearty  thanks  for 
giving  her  a  chance  "  to  have  so  pleasant, 
a  talk  with  Mr.  Lincoln !  " 

Told  by  Judge  L.  D.  Swing,  Chicago. 

Make  the  World  Better  for  Your 
Having  Lived  in  it. 

On  account  of  the  breaking  of  his  mar- 
riage engagement,  Lincoln  fell  into  a 
state  of  gloom  that  was  alarming  to  his 
friends,  who  assured  him  that  he  must 
rally  or  lose  his  life.  He  failed  to  at- 
tend the  Legislature,  of  which  he  was 
member  (1841),  and  neglected  his  pri- 
vate duties.  On  recovering,  he  said  to 
his  friend,  Mr.  Speed: 

"  I  have  an  inexpressible  desire  to  live 
till  I  can  be  assured  that  the  world  is  a 
little  better  for  my  having  lived  in  it." 


lincolntca  21 

A  Narrow  Squeak  for  the  Pig. 

During  Lincoln's  early  days  when  he 
was  poor  and  depressed  by  the  profound 
despondency  which  so  long  afflicted  him,  he 
was  riding  one  day  through  the  sparsely 
settled  parts  of  Indiana.  His  errand 
was  of  importance,  and  he  was  dressed  in 
his  best — home-spun  jeans.  But  he  gave 
ear  to  a  shrill  cry  of  distress  at  which  his 
companions  only  laughed.  It  was  but  a  pig 
caught  in  the  mud  of  a  wallow,  and  sink- 
ing so  fast  that  it  would  shortly  cut  its 
throat  with  its  sharp  feet  or  suffocate. 
Lincoln  looked  at  the  black  gumbo  mud, 
then  at  his  good  clothes,  "  the  unique 
Sunday-go-to-meetings,"  and  after  a 
slight  hesitation,  turned  back  and  extri- 
cated the  little  porker.  When  he  went 
onwards,  he  was  daubed  with  mud.  But 
he  explained  to  his  friends  that  he 
thought  of  the  poor  farmer  who  could  not 
afford  such  a  loss  and  he  thought  also  of 
the  shote  and  could  not  resist  the  appeal. 


aa  Xincolnfcs 

The  Prize  for  Homeliness. 

Abraham  Lincoln  did  not  deceive  him- 
self in  regard  to  his  facial  blemishes. 
George  Sand  has  said  that  every  man  is 
pleased  with  his  face  but  never  with  his 
fortune.  The  President  gives  the  lady 
the  lie  on  that  axiom.  It  may  be  premised 
that,  on  the  border,  a  person  remarkably 
ill-favored  in  lineaments  was  awarded  a 
jack-knife  as  token  of  his  preeminence  in 
this  line. 

Lincoln  tells  the  story  of  how  he  be- 
came possessed  of  this  undesirable 
trophy. 

"In  the  days  when  I  used  to  be  on 
the  circuit  [183-,  travelling  on  horseback 
from  one  county  court  to  another]  I  was 
once  accosted  by  a  stranger,  who  said: 

"  '  Excuse  me,  sir,  but  I  have  an  arti- 
cle which  belongs  to  you/ 

'  How  is  that?  '  I  asked,  considerably 
astonished. 

"  The  stranger  took  a  jack-knife  from 
his  pocket. 


Xincolnics  23 

'  This  knife/  said  he,  '  was  placed 
in  my  hands  some  years  ago,  with  the 
injunction  that  I  was  to  keep  it  until  I 
found  a  man  homelier-looking  than  I  am 
myself.  I  have  carried  it  from  that  time 
till  this;  allow  me  to  say,  sir,  that  you  are 
fairly  entitled  to  the  property/  " 

As  "  below  the  lowest  depth  "  there 
is  a  lower  still,  Lincoln  was  also  able  to 
make  a  happy  deliverance  of  the  token 
to  another  victim  of  fate.  But  the  lat- 
ter, the  Rev.  William  Hastings,  re- 
joicing  at  its  being  the  link  which 
connected  him  with  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  proclaimed  the  fact  at 
Toronto,  Canada,  where  he  lived  and  died 
(Feb.,  1902),  a  revered  minister  of  the 
Gospel. 

"Not  One  of  the   Sparrows  is 
Forgotten." 

Another  time  when  Lincoln  was  riding 
over  the  prairie  with  a  party  of  law- 
court  attendants,  they  noticed  a  couple 


«4  Xincolnicd 

of  fledglings  fluttering  on  the  ground 
where  they  had  fallen  out  of  the  nest. 
After  the  party  had  gone  on  a  little  dis- 
tance, Lincoln  wheeled  and  rode  back  on 
their  tracks.  The  others  halted  and 
watched  him  go  to  the  spot  and  replace 
the  nestlings. 

When  he  rejoined  the  cavalcade,  one 
of  the  men  bantered  him  about  his  char- 
itable act,  saying: 

"  Why  did  you  bother  yourself  and 
delay  us  about  such  a  trifle?  " 

"My  friend,"  was  the  response,  "I 
can  only  say  that  I  feel  the  better  for 
it!" 

As  there  were  several  witnesses  of  this 
incident,  accounts  vary  as  to  the  number 
of  birdlings,  but,  as  usual,  this  variant 
proves  the  fact. 

Turn  About  Is  Fair  Play. 

"  My  only  argument  (in  politics)  is 
that  '  turn  about  is  fair  play  '  "  (in  re- 
gard to  a  candidate  giving  way  to  an- 


Xincolnfca  25 

other  candidate  for  the  party  good — with 
the  understanding  that  the  relinquishing 
one  represents  the  party  in  the  next 
election). 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  opponent  with- 
drew. 

[Letter  held  by  Dr.  Boal,  Lacon,  111.] 

A  Venture  on  Nothing. 

As  a  boy,  Lincoln  had  often  attracted 
attention  and  commendation  by  giving  his 
spare  time  to  reading.  One  inquirer  as 
to  the  nature  of  his  studies  was  surprised 
that  he  should  answer  "  Law."  It  was 
the  bending  of  the  twig  which  inclined 
the  tree.  He  had  picked  up  a  copy  of 
"  Blackstone  "  from  the  rubbish  in  the 
barrel  of  a  second-hand  clothes-and-odds 
dealer  travelling  through  the  country. 
With  scarcely  more  than  this  provision, 
and  what  he  had  gleaned  from  odd  vol- 
umes of  the  State  Statutes,  in  1837,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-eight,  he  arrived  in 


26  Xlncolnice 

Springfield  to  engage  definitely  in  the 
practice  of  law.  He  rode  on  a  hired 
horse  and  his  property  was  contained  in 
a  pair  of  saddle-bags.  He  priced  at  the 
town  stores  the  outfit  for  a  single  bed. 
It  came  to  seventeen  dollars,  more  than 
he  could  pay,  but  he  proposed  to  Joshua 
F.  Speed,  the  storekeeper,  to  buy  the  bed 
subj  ect  to  payment  at  Christmas,  by  which 
time  he  hoped  his  law  undertakings  would 
be  fruitful.  The  merchant  naturally  ob- 
jected that  he  might  fail. 

"  If  I  fail  in  this,"  was  the  sad  reply, 
"  I  will  probably  never  be  able  to  pay 
you." 

The  storekeeper  kindly  suggested  that 
he  should  "  room  "  with  him  as  he  had  a 
double-bedded  room;  and  a  friend  al- 
lowed him  board  "  till  his  ship  came  in." 
The  great  problem  of  bed  and  board  was 
thus  solved  for  the  aspirant.  This  action 
was  what  was  called  "  neighborly "  in 
those  parts  and  in  those  days;  and  with- 
out giving  grounds  for  Lincoln's  refusing 


Xincolnicd  27 

fees  from  needy  clients,  it  prompted  him 
to  do  unto  others  as  he  had  been  done  by. 

"  A  Land  of  Free  Speech." 

When  Lincoln  was  in  partnership  with 
John  T.  Stuart,  they  had  offices  directly 
over  the  courtroom  in  Springfield.  This 
allowed  them  to  overhear  the  proceedings 
below  them,  much  after  the  mode  in  which 
D'Artagnan,  in  the  Musketeers,  listened 
at  the  trap-hole  in  his  floor  to  what  went 
on  beneath  it.  There  was,  indeed,  a 
movable  board,  and  at  the  aperture,  re- 
clining at  full  length,  Lincoln  would  take 
note  of  the  progress  of  a  case  until  the 
fit  moment  for  his  attendance. 

During  a  holiday  of  the  bench,  a  crowd 
filled  the  courtroom  and  a  friend  of  Lin- 
coln, Edward  D.  Baker,  was  addressing 
them,  when  something  adverse  in  his 
harangue  incited  the  unruly  to  assault 
the  speaker  and  to  pull  him  down.  By  a 
happy  chance,  Lincoln  was  lending  his 


28  Xincolntcd 

ear  to  the  discussion,  and,  peering  down 
through  the  hole  in  the  floor,  perceived 
the  danger  of  his  friend.  Immediately, 
without  delaying  to  run  around  and  de- 
scend by  the  stairs,  he  thrust  his  big  feet 
and  long  legs  through  the  opening  and 
dropped  like  a  bolt  out  of  the  sky  into 
the  melee. 

Picking  up  a  water-jug,  and  striking 
an  attitude  of  defence,  he  shouted: 

"  Hold  on,  gentlemen,  this  is  a  land  of 
free  speech!  Mr.  Baker  has  a  right  to 
be  heard.  I  am  here  to  protect  him,  and 
no  man  shall  take  him  from  this  stand  if 
J  can  prevent  it." 

This  dictum  of  the  Deus  ex  machina 
imposed  order  and  the  orator  was  allowed 
to  continue  his  speech. 

The  Voice  out  of  Proportion  to  the 
Body. 

Once  during  the  argument  in  a  lawsuit, 
in  wLich  Lincoln  represented  one  party, 


Xtncolnics  29 

the  lawyer  on  the  other  side  was  a  good 
deal  of  a  talker,  but  was  not  reckoned  as 
deeply  profound  or  much  of  a  thinker. 
He  would  say  anything  to  a  jury  which 
happened  to  enter  his  head.  Lincoln,  in 
his  address  to  the  jury,  referring  to  this, 
said: 

"  My  friend  on  the  other  side  is  all 
right,  or  would  be  all-  right,  were  it  not 
for  the  peculiarity  I  am  about  to  chronicle. 
His  habit — of  which  you  have  witnessed 
a  very  painful  specimen  in  his  argument 
to  you  in  this  case — of  reckless  assertion 
and  statements  without  grounds,  need  not 
be  imputed  to  him  as  a  moral  fault  or  as 
telling  of  a  moral  blemish.  He  can't  help 
it.  For  reasons  which,  gentlemen  of  the 
jury,  you  and  I  have  not  the  time  to 
study  here,  as  deplorable  as  they  are  sur- 
prising, the  oratory  of  the  gentleman  com- 
pletely suspends  all  action  of  his  mind. 
The  moment  he  begins  to  talk,  his  mental 
operations  cease.  I  never  knew  of  but 
one  thing  which  compared  with  my 


30  Xincolnics 

friend  in  this  particular.  That  was  a 
small  steamboat.  Back  in  the  days  when 
I  performed  my  part  as  a  keel  boatman 
[1830],  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  a 
trifling  little  steamboat  which  used  to 
bustle  and  puff  and  wheeze  about  the 
Sangamon  River.  It  had  a  five-foot 
boiler  and  a  seven-foot  whistle,  and  every 
time  it  whistled  it  stopped." 

[Argonaut.] 

"Settle  It!" 

Squire  Masters  of  Petersburg,  111.,  was 
once  threatened  with  a  lawsuit.  He  went 
to  Springfield,  where  Lincoln  was  lo- 
cated [1837,  etc.],  and  had  a  talk  with 
him  about  the  case.  Lincoln  told  him,  as 
an  old  friend,  that  if  he  could  not  settle 
the  case  he  would  undertake  the  defence, 
but  he  urged  his  friend  to  make  an  ami- 
cable adjustment. 

"  What  '11  you  charge,  Abe,  to  go  into 
court  for  me?"  said  Mr,  Masters. 

"  Well,"  was  Lincoln's  reply,  "  it  will 


Ifncolnice  31 

cost  you  ten  dollars;  but  I  won't  charge 
you  anything  if  you  can  settle  it  between 
yourselves." 

The  other  party  heard  of  the  squire's 
visit  to  Lincoln,  and  agreed  to  settle. 

A  Lawyer  with  a  Conscience. 

A  lawyer  who  studied  in  Mr.  Lincoln's 
office  tells  a  story  illustrative  of  his  love 
of  justice.  After  listening  one  day  for 
some  time  to  a  client's  statement  of  his 
case,  Lincoln,  who  had  been  staring  at 
the  ceiling,  suddenly  swung  around  in  his 
chair,  and  said : 

"  Well,  you  have  a  pretty  good  case  in 
technical  law,  but  a  pretty  bad  one  in 
equity  and  justice.  You  '11  have  to  get 
some  other  fellow  to  win  this  case  for 
you.  I  could  n't  do  it.  All  the  time, 
while  talking  to  that  jury,  I  'd  be  think- 
ing: '  Lincoln,  you're  a  liar,'  and  I  be- 
lieve I  should  forget  myself  and  say  it 
out  loud." 


32  Xtncotnics 

Tit  for  Tat. 

During  the  forties,  when  Lincoln  was 
living  in  Springfield,  practising  law,  there 
was  among  his  patrons  a  judge,  an  in- 
fluential citizen,  of  whose  dignity  more  care 
was  taken  by  his  associates  than  by  him- 
self. On  his  part,  the  budding  barrister 
(to  use  the  English  term)  was  still  not 
over-particular  as  to  appearance  or  attire; 
he  would  have  agreed  with  Dr.  Johnson 
who  boldly  averred  that  he  had  "  no  pas- 
sion for  fine  linen/'  In  his  attitudes,  also, 
he  was,  to  put  it  mildly,  careless.  When 
the  judge  was  ushered  into  the  parlor  he 
was,  therefore,  not  astonished  to  see  the 
long,  attenuated  figure  spread  over  at 
least  two  chairs,  reclining  rather  than 
sitting,  quite  at  his  ease.  It  is  notice- 
able in  those  who  have  been  brought  up 
to  hard  work  that  they  are  apt  to  procure 
entire  rest  by  lying  prone;  the  boy  Lin- 
coln was  often  seen  reading  or  writing 
on  the  earth  floor  or  on  the  unswept 


Xincolnicd  33 

hearthstone.  He  did  not  change  his  posi- 
tion after  the  caller  was  seated,  somewhat 
more  decorously.  Mrs.  Lincoln,  from  the 
reply  to  her  chance  question  put  to  the 
servant,  suspected  something  of  the  mat- 
ter. She  hurried  into  the  presence  of 
the  two  lawyers  and  found  herself 
so  shocked  at  the  unseemly  demeanor  of 
her  husband  that  she  went  up  behind  the 
sinner,  plucked  him  by  the  hair  (worn 
long  in  the  far- Western  style),  and 
twitched  his  head  up  and  around  with  a 
reminding  look. 

The  sufferer  apparently  did  not  notice 
the  double  rebuke;  he  simply  looked  at  her 
and  said,  without  changing  a  muscle: 

"  Little  Mary  !  allow  me  to  introduce 
you  to  my  friend,  Judge  Butterfield !  " 

Now  it  is  well  known  that  nothing  is 
more  deeply  felt  or  more  warmly  resented 
by  undersized  persons  than  any  allusion 
to  their  stature.  Lincoln  habitually  alluded 
to  his  partner  as  "  the  little  woman." 
And,  unfortunately,  the  discrepancy  be- 


34  Zincolnicd 

tween  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  her  giant  mate 
was  of  frequent  remark  and  of  continual 
consciousness,  so  that  she  came  out  of 
this  encounter  the  humiliated  one.  The 
judge  might  conclude  that  this  instance 
impugned  the  ancient  saying  that  the 
"  Eagle  in  the  rostrum  is  a  dove  at  home." 

Not  Fate  but  Providence. 

"  What  is  to  be,  will  be ! — or,  rather,  I 
have  found  out,  all  my  life,  as  Hamlet 
says :  '  There  's  a  divinity  that  shapes  our 
ends,  rough-hew  them  how  we  will.'  " 

[Letter  to  Mr.  John  Butterfield,  of 
Chicago,  1841.] 

This  line  from  Hamlet  would  appeal 
to  one  who  had  exercised  the  woodman's 
art.  With  the  felling  axe,  one  rough-hews 
the  log,  but  it  is  a  superior  hand  that 
shapes  all  to  the  finish. 

In  connection  with  this  expression  of 
belief  in  predestination,  it  may  be  re- 
lated that  once  during  a  conversation 
with  Senator  Dawes  (Mass.)  the  President 


Xincolntca  35 

took  up  the  Senator's  little  boy  in  his 
arms  and  said  to  him,  with  humorous 
gravity : 

"  My  boy,  never  try  to  be  President ! 
If  you  do,  you  never  will  be." 

This  classes  the  President  apart  from 
the  denier  of  the  predestinarian  doctrine 
who  said  in  reply  to  an  argument:  "No! 
I  believe  that  what  will  be,  won't  be !  " 

Lincoln's  Favorite  Shakespeare 
Play. 

Macbeth.  The  coincidence  of  the  reg- 
icide has  frequently  been  noted. 

Lincoln  on  Shakespeare. 

"  The  best  judge  of  human  nature  that 
ever  wrote." 

"Slow  to  Learn  and  Slow  to  Forget." 

An  intimate  friend  of  Lincoln,  Mr.  J. 
F.  Speed,  of  Springfield,  had  remarked 
that  Lincoln's  mind  was  a  wonder  to  him, 


36  Xincolntca 

as  impressions  seemed  easily  made  upon 
it    and   were    never    effaced. 

"  No,"  corrected  Lincoln,  "  you  are 
mistaken.  I  am  slow  to  learn  and  slow 
to  forget  that  which  I  have  learned.  My 
mind  is  like  a  piece  of  steel — very  hard 
to  scratch  anything  upon  it,  and  almost 
impossible,  after  you  get  it  there,  to  rub 
it  out." 

The  Chief  Gem  of  Character  is  to 
Keep  One's  Resolves. 

"  Before  I  resolve  to  do  the  one  thing 
or  the  other,  I  must  gain  my  confidence 
in  my  own  ability  to  keep  my  resolves 
when  they  are  made." 

[Letter  to  J.  F.  Speed,  July,  1842.] 

"  Hug  a  Bad  Bargain  all  the 
Tighter." 

In  another  letter  to  Mr.  Speed,  Lincoln 
says  that  his  father  had  a  saying: 

"  If  you  make  a  bad  bargain,  hug  it 
all  the  tighter !  " 

[Feb.,    1842.] 


Xfncolnfc*  37 

Representing  by  Proxy. 

The  Whig  primary  convention  held  at 
Springfield,  111.,  in  1842,  chose,  as  can- 
didates, Abraham  Lincoln,  Edward  D. 
Baker  and  John  J.  Hardin.  The  last 
was  the  favorite  and  Lincoln  had  "  a  tax 
of  considerable  per  cent,  levied  on  his 
strength,"  as  this  man  was  to  be  elected. 
As  it  happened  that  Baker  had  the  next 
term,  and  Lincoln  the  one  following,  in 
1846,  a  cry  of  collusion  was  not  unnatu- 
rally raised,  but  this  is  said  to  have  been 
illusion.  When  the  selection  was  decided 
by  acclamation,  Lincoln  proposed  that 
Baker  should  have  the  following  term, 
but  his  generosity  was  received  by 
a  majority  of  but  one  vote.  Lincoln  said 
he  felt  like  the  young  man  who  had  been 
"  cut  out "  but  who  was  consolingly  in- 
vited, when  the  other  fellow  married  his 
"  girl,"  to  act  as  "  best  man." 

Historical  Note. — Of  these  three  rivals 
and  finally  successful  candidates,  all  met 


38  lincolnicd 

violent  deaths:  Hardin  was  killed  at  the 
battle  of  Buena  Vista,  in  the  Mexican 
War,  and  Baker  at  Ball's  Bluff,  in  the 
Civil  War. 

Do  not  Wait  to  be  Hunted  Up  and 
Pushed  Forward. 

"  Do  you  suppose  that  I  should  ever 
have  got  into  notice  if  I  had  waited  to 
be  hunted  up  and  pushed  forward  by  older 
men  ?  " 

[Letter  to  Judge  Herndon,  1848.] 

A  Small  Crop  of  Fight  from  a  Big 
Piece  of  Ground. 

In  a  case  of  assault  and  battery,  Lin- 
coln was  assigned  to  the  defence.  The 
plaintiff  made  out  a  strong  story  of  the 
injuries  done  him,  which  his  appearance 
bore  out.  Having  finished  exhibiting 
his  maltreated  client,  the  district  attorney 
handed  him  over  to  the  defence  for  cross- 
examination.  Lincoln  had  studied  the 


Xincolnics  39 

plaintiff  rather  than  his  evidence,  and 
reasoned  that  he  must  break  down  the 
complaint  or  discredit  the  accusation.  He 
conceived  that  the  fellow  was  a  conceited 
one  who  would  by  replying  saucily  seek 
to  show  himself  "  smart." 

"  Well,  my  friend,"  demanded  he,  sud- 
denly, after  a  pause  to  "  reckon  him  up," 
"  how  much  ground  did  you  and  my  client 
here  fight  over  ?  " 

"  About  six  acres,"  answered  the  man, 
pertly. 

"  Well,  but  do  you  not  allow  that  was  a 
mighty  small  crop  of  a  fight  to  gather 
off  such  a  big  piece  of  ground  ?  " 

The  result  was  a  laugh  which  ended 
in  "  laughing  the  matter  out  of  court." 

Told  by  Hon.  Chauncey  Depew,  in 
Rice's  Recollections. 

Litigation. 

"  Discourage  litigation !  There  will 
still  be  business  enough." 

Note*  for  a  Lecture  on  the  Law. 


40  Xincolnfce 

Extempore  Speaking. 

"  Extempore  speaking  is  the  lawyer's 
avenue  to  the  people." 

Notes  for  a  Lecture  on  the  Law. 

Diligence. 

"  The  leading  rule  for  the  lawyer,  as 
for  the  man  of  any  other  calling,  is 
Diligence." 

Notes  for  a  Lecture  on  the  Law. 

"  Come  and  Help  me  Let  Go  ! " 

The  law  firm  of  Herndon  and  Lincoln 
[1843,  etc.]  had  the  defence  in  a  capital 
case  in  which  the  judge  had  shown  him- 
self adverse  to  them  and  to  their  client. 
Lincoln,  who  was  the  voice  of  his  side, 
felt  that  the  rulings  were  personal  and 
said  in  the  recess: 

"  I  have  determined  to  '  crowd  the  court 
to  the  wall/  and  to  regain  my  position  be- 
fore night."  "  Mad  all  over,"  he  up- 


lincolnicd  41 

at  the  end  had  "  peeled  the  court  from 
head  to  foot,"  figuratively  declares  his 
law  partner.  To  clinch  the  argument, 
says  the  same  reporter,  he  made  use  of  a 
locally  applicable  simile. 

"  In  early  days,"  said  Lincoln,  "  a 
party  of  men  went  out  hunting  for  a  wild 
boar.  But  the  game  came  upon  them  un- 
awares, and  they,  scampering  away, 
climbed  trees,  all  save  one,  who,  seizing 
the  animal  by  the  ears,  undertook  to  hold 
him.  After  holding  him  for  some  time 
and  finding  his  strength  giving  way,  he 
cried  out  to  his  companions  in  the  trees: 

' '  Boys,   come   down   and  help   me   let 
go!'" 

The  scarified  judge  pretended  to  see 
his  error  and  reversed  his  decision,  and 
Lincoln's  client  was  acquitted. 

Judge  Herndon's  Life. 

Suspicion  and  Jealousy. 

"  Suspicion  and  jealousy  never  did 
help  any  man  in  any  situation." 


42  lincolnicd 

Don't  Contest  a  Clear  Right. 

On  inspecting  the  evidence  exhibited 
to  Lincoln  by  a  lawyer  bringing  suit  to 
enforce  the  specific  execution  of  a  con- 
tract, the  advocate  said: 

"  As  your  client  is  j  ustly  entitled  to  a 
decree  in  his  favor,  I  shall  so  repre- 
sent it  to  the  court.  It  is  against  my 
principles  to  contest  a  clear  matter  of 
right." 

Legal  Rights  Are  not  always  Moral 
Rights. 

A  would-be  client  detailed  to  Lincoln, 
at  Springfield,  111.,  a  case  in  which  he 
had  a  legal  claim  to  a  value  of  some  hun- 
dreds of  dollars.  But  his  winning  it 
would  ruin  a  widow  and  afflict  her  six 
children. 

"  We  shall  not  take  your  case,  though 
we  can  doubtless  gain  it  for  you,"  re- 
sponded Lincoln.  "  Some  things  that 
are  right  legally  are  not  right  morally. 


Xtncolntcs  43 

But  we  will  give  you  some  advice  for 
which  we  will  charge  nothing.  [The 
"  we "  included  his  partner,  Mr.  Hern- 
don.]  We  advise  a  sprightly,  energetic 
man  like  you  to  try  your  hand  at  making 
six  hundred  dollars  in  some  other  way." 

Coming  into  Court  with  Clean  Hands. 

While  Lincoln  was  a  practising  lawyer, 
he  had  lost  a  case  from  the  defendant's 
producing  a  receipt  for  the  sum  in  ques- 
tion. Lincoln  immediately  retired.  The 
court  sent  for  him,  and  the  messenger 
found  him  in  the  neighborhood  hotel 
washing  his  hands. 

"  My  hands  are  dirty  from  that  '  slip- 
pery knave,'  "  said  he,  and,  using  the  towel, 
"  I  want  to  return  to  court  with  clean 
hands." 

The  Presidency  Was  so  Big. 

Lincoln's  first  ambition — when  "  clerk- 
ing it  "  in  a  country  store — was  to  be 
member  of  the  State  Assembly.  Later 


44  Xincolnfca 

he  longed  to  be  Congressman.  Then — 
at  the  time  when  the  railroad  magnate, 
Villard,  made  his  acquaintance  out  West — 
he  said:  "  I  did  not  consider  myself  quali- 
fied for  the  U.  S.  Senatorship  and  it 
took  me  a  long  time  to  persuade  myself 
that  I  was."  He  became  convinced  of 
that  later,,  but  still  he  kept  on  saying  to 
himself :  '  *  It  is  too  big  a  thing  for 
you,  Abe ;  you  will  never  get  it ! '  Mary 
[Mrs.  Lincoln]  insists  that  I  am  going  to 
be  Senator  and  President  of  the  United 
States !  "  This  was  followed,  continues 
the  narrator,  by  a  roar  of  laughter,  as  he 
sat  with  his  arms  around  his  knees,  shak- 
ing all  over  with  mirth  at  his  wife's  am- 
bition. "  Just  think,"  he  exclaimed,  "  of 
such  a  sucker1  as  me  for  President !  " 


1  Sucker  in  this  sense  means  a  native  or 
citizen  of  Illinois,  the  "  Sucker  State."  The 
marshy  nature  of  the  land  near  the  first  settle- 
ments by  the  rich  river  bottom,  full  of 
mud-lish  of  the  lamprey  order,  and  their 
manner  of  feeding  suggested  the  nickname, 


Xincolnics  45 

"Keep  the  Pledge!" 

In  the  forties,  the  "  teetotal "  or  tem- 
perance movement,  originating  in  Great 
Britain,  swept  through  the  States  even  to 
the  borders.  At  the  front  was  an  or- 
ganization called  the  "  Washingtonians." 
It  had  been  instituted  at  Washington,  on 
the  22d  of  February,  1842.  About 
1846,  Illinois  experienced  the  agitation, 
akin  to  a  religious  revival.  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  the  lecturer  to  the  society,  in 
the  South  Fork  schoolhouse,  Sangamon 
County.  He  had,  in  his  general-store  ex- 
perience, seen  the  evils  of  the  drink  habit 
and  the  system  fostering  it.  Among  the 


together  with  the  coincidence  that,  as  the 
"suckers"  ascend  the  stream  and  return  at 
certain  seasons,  the  natives  of  "  Egypt,"  around 
Cairo,  went  up  to  work  at  times  in  the  Galena 
lead  mines  but  came  home  to  till  their  farms. 

(Compare  with  General  Washington's  reply  to 
Congress  on  being  appointed  Commander-in- 
Chief :  "  I  declare  with  the  utmost  sincerity, 
I  do  not  think  myself  equal  to  the  commission 
I  am  honored  with.  " — June,  1776J 


46  Xincolnfcs 

youth  who  assumed  the  blue  ribbon  and 
took  the  pledge  was  one  Cleophas  Breck- 
enridge,  to  whom  the  orator  said,  on  dec- 
orating him: 

"  Now,  sonny,  you  keep  that  pledge 
and  it  will  be  the  best  act  of  your  life !  " 

Never  Drink— Never  a  Drunkard. 

Lincoln  used  to  repeat  a  remark  of  his 
stepmother's  in  reference  to  his  early 
adoption  and  advocacy  of  the  temperance 
movement : 

"  Men  become  drunkards  because  they 
begin  to  drink;  if  they  never  began 
to  drink  they  would  never  become 
drunkards/' 

If  Any  Man  Thinks  it  Easy  to  be 
President,  let  him  Try  it ! 

There  is  an  ancient  saying,  coeval  with 
the  Greeks,  that  the  pleasure  is  in  the 
race,  not  in  the  palm,  its  prize.  Lincoln 
proved  the  truth  of  this  as  early  as  his 
election  as  Congressman  and  consequent 


Xincolntcd  47 

arrival  at  the  Mecca  of  all  successful  pol- 
iticians, Washington.  He  wrote  to  an 
intimate  correspondent,  in  1846,  when 
his  foot  was  at  the  ball,  "  Being  elected 
....  has  not  pleased  me  as  much 
as  I  expected."  His  friends  were  sure 
that  he  would  distinguish  himself  there, 
but  it  was  much  more  like  an  extinguish- 
ment; he,  the  man  of  the  people  from  the 
start,  actually  ran  counter  to  popularity 
by  opposing  the  general  desire  for  war 
with  Mexico,  at  the  bottom  of  which  ques- 
tion lay  the  tremendous  doctrine  of  "  Free 
soil  for  free  settlers."  Under  all  the 
arguments,  however,  was  the  hunger  for 
land — land!  and  Texas  had  long  been 
doomed  to  be  clutched  by  the  Northern 
eagle's  claw.  But,  immediately  after  the 
war,  and  while  the  aroma  of  victory  still 
clung  to  him,  old  "  Rough  and  Ready " 
— surely  a  hero  after  his  own  kind — 
was  nominated  for  President  [1848],  and 
Lincoln  somewhat  illogically  stood  up  for 
Zachary  Taylor.  He  made  speeches  on 


48  Xincolnfcs 

his  behalf  in  Massachusetts.  He  pleaded 
that  the  General,  while  the  figurehead 
of  the  Whig  party,  held  correct  sound 
"  Republican  "  principles.1  This  double- 
header  was  naturally  applauded  by  num- 
bers of  Messrs.  Facing-both-ways.  The 
result  was  that  Gen.  Zachary  Taylor  was 
our  twelfth  President. 

When  Lincoln  became  the  sixteenth,  he 
learned  thoroughly  of  "  polished  pertur- 
bation." Nine  tenths  of  his  callers  were 
office-seekers  for  self  or  kin,  or  suppli- 
cants for  contracts;  his  house  was  di- 
vided, as  his  wife's  connections  at  least 
sympathized  with  the  wrong  side;  and 
his  responsibility  weighed  heavily  upon 
him  as  he  had  no  second — no  other-self 
— no  Mazarin,  at  the  worst,  with  whom 
to  share  it. 


»  The  Republican  party  as  a  concrete  organ- 
ization did  not  come  into  existence  till  1856 
when  it  was  built  on  the  "  free  soil "  ("squatter 
sovereignty")  question. 


Xtncolnics  49 

Too  Slow  for  a  Hearse! 

A  portrait  of  Lincoln,  seen  in  a  St. 
Louis  art  exhibition,  was  the  work  of 
A.  J.  Conant,  who,  to  keep  his  sitter  in 
good  countenance,  used  to  "  swap  stories  " 
with  him.  One  of  Lincoln's  runs  as 
follows : 

"  There  was  a  man  from  Missouri  who 
went  to  a  '  livery '  to  get  a  horse  to  take 
him  to  a  convention,  where  he  expected  to 
be  made  a  delegate.  The  stable-keeper 
was  of  another  political  stripe,  and  nat- 
urally fobbed  off  upon  him  a  horse  cal- 
culated to  break  down  before  he  reached 
his  destination.  On  his  return  home,  the 
disappointed  Missourian  asked  the  pro- 
prietor if  he  was  training  that  animal  to 
draw  a  hearse. 

( '  Guess  I  ain't '  was  the  surly  reply. 

"  '  Well,'  went  on  the  other,  "  '  if  you 
were,  he  would  never  do  for  it;  for  he 
would  not  get  the  corpse  to  the  cemetery 
in  time  for  the  resurrection/  " 


so  Xtncolnics 

The  eminent  story-teller  was  fond  of 
this  story — so  the  relater  proceeds, — as  he 
had  twice  been  interrupted  in  the  deliv- 
ery of  it ;  once  by  a  railroad  train  "  pulling 
out "  as  he  began  it,  and  again,  at  a 
great  gun  testing,  by  the  ordnance  going 
off  just  at  the  point  of  the  narrative. 

He  Wanted  the  Pork ! 

At  a  meeting  during  an  electioneering 
campaign,  one  of  the  audience  asked  Lin- 
coln a  question  which  he  did  not  answer. 
This  seemed  singular  as,  usually,  he  was 
glad  to  reply  and  to  show  his  readi- 
ness and  ability  to  turn  the  tables  when 
being  "  heckled."  A  supporter  on  the 
platform  inquired  the  reason  of  his 
taciturnity.  "I  am  after  votes,"  whis- 
pered Lincoln  with  his  ironical  wink  and 
working  his  lips  like  a  horse  when  trying 
to  get  the  bit  between  his  teeth,  "  and 
that  man's  vote  is  as  good  as  any  other 
man's ! " 


OLtncoInics  51 

"The  Common-[Looking]  People." 

Lincoln  once  dreamed  that  he  was  in 
a  great  assembly  where  the  people  made 
a  lane  for  him  to  pass  through.  "  He  is 
a  common-looking  fellow,"  said  one  of 
them.  "  Friend,"  replied  Lincoln  in  his 
dream,  "  the  Lord  prefers  common-look- 
ing people — that  is  why  He  made  so 
many  of  them." 

Hapgood's   Abraham   Lincoln. 

The  current  quotation  reads:  "The 
Lord  loves  the  poor  more  than  the  rich, 
because  He  (or  He  would  not  have)  made 
so  many  of  them." 

Lincoln's  Early  Library. 

The  Bible,  Dilworth's  Spelling-book, 
Kirkham's  Grammar,  Euclid,  Shake- 
speare, Volney's  Ruins,  Paine's  Age  of 
Reason,  Blackstone,  Illinois  State  Stat- 
utes, Burns,  ^Esop's  Fables,  Life  of 
Franklin,  Pilgrim's  Progress,  Weems's 
Washington  and  Ramsay's,  Riley's  Nar- 


52  Zincolnics 

rative,   Holmes's   Poems,   Chas.   Mackay's 
Poems,  Cowper's  Poems. 

Protection  to  Make  a  Great  Country. 

"  My  fellow-citizens,  I  may  not  live  to 
see  it,  but  give  us  a  protective  tariff,  and 
we  will  have  the  greatest  country  on 
earth." 

Reported  by  Mr.  R.  Grigsby,  Speech  in 
Indiana,  1844. 

Books  Show  our  Thoughts  are  not 
New. 

An  Illinois  minister  having  observed 
to  Congressman  Lincoln  that  "  Men  of 
force  can  get  on  without  books — they 
do  their  own  thinking,"  the  other  re- 
plied :  "  Yes ;  but  books  serve  to  show 
that  those  original  thoughts  of  his  are  n't 
very  new." 

Taking  More  than  My  Share. 
When    Congressman    Lincoln    paid    his 
first  visit  in  that  capacity  to  the  national 
capital,  he  had  had  no  acquaintance  with 


Xfncolnfcd  53 

what  was,  in  the  North  and  East,  esteemed 
"  good  society."  In  the  House  lobby 
and  its  sanctum  for  airing  witticisms,  as 
Well  as  in  his  boarding-house  coffee-room, 
he  speedily  became  the  pre-eminent  con- 
versationalist; but  it  could  hardly  be  ex- 
pected that  the  "  Hoosier  "  would  adorn 
the  drawing-room  of  the  "  first  families." 
He  seems  to  have  been  lured  into  these 
uncongenial  haunts  much  as  Voltaire's 
"  Huron  "  was  led  through  the  salons  of 
King  Louis,  although  his  shrewd  innate 
sense  and  honest  simplicity  saved  him 
from  embarrassment  no  less  creditably 
than  was  the  case  with  Franklin,  when 
the  duchesses  "  smoked "  him  at  his  re- 
treat in  Passy. 

It  is  recounted  that,  at  a  dinner,  where 
the  joint  was  the  not  uncommon  leg  of 
roast  mutton,  the  inevitable  currant  jelly 
accompanying  it  was  passed  in  its  own 
glass.  But  the  guest,  in  perfect  innocence, 
took  the  latter  and  clung  to  it,  eating  of  it 
steadily.  The  butler  knew  his  business, 


54  Xincolnfcs 

however,  and,  as  in  the  epicurean  anec- 
dote of  the  Two  Salmons,  simply  sent  a 
second  glass  of  jelly  on  its  rounds.  It 
was  still  circulating  when  the  offender, 
perceiving  that  something  was  wrong, 
laughed  quietly  at  seeing  that  his  neigh- 
bors took  only  a  spoonful  from  the  glass, 
and  observed  not  inaudibly: 

"  It  seems  that  I  took  more  than  my 
share ! "  He  went  on  with  the  repast, 
the  whole  blunder  and  honest  retrieve- 
ment  being  accepted  as  proving  good 
manners  at  heart. 

No  Military  Hero. 

Although  a  member  of  Lincoln's  Cabinet 
said  that  "  The  President  is  his  own  war 
minister;  he  directs  personally  the  move- 
ments of  the  armies  and  is  fond  of 
strategy,"  yet  he  relieved  himself  of  the  su- 
perior command  with  the  utmost  readiness 
when  the  able  Atlas  appeared  in  General 
Grant.  At  all  events,  in  earlier  years 
Lincoln  treated  humorously  his  martial 


Xincolnics  55 

experience  during  the  "  Black  Hawk 
War."  The  Democratic  candidate  for 
President,  when  Lincoln  was  in  Congress 
[184-6],  was  General  Cass,  for  whom  po- 
litical capital  was  attempted  to  be  made 
of  his  conduct  in  that  war.  Lincoln  de- 
scanted upon  this  claim  as  follows: 

• "  Mr.  Speaker,  did  you  know  that  I 
am  a  military  hero?  Yes,  sir,  in  the  days- 
of  the  Black  Hawk  War  I  fought,  bled 
and — came  away.  Speaking  of  General 
Cass's  career  reminds  me  of  my  own.  I 
was  not  at  Stillman's  defeat;  but  I  was 
about  as  near  it  as  Cass  was  to  Hull's  sur- 
render, and  like  him  I  saw  the  place  very 
soon  afterward.  It  is  quite  certain  I  did 
not  break  my  sword,  for  I  had  none  to- 
break^1  but  I  bent  my  musket  pretty 
badly.  ...  If  Gen.  Cass  went  in  advance 
of  me  in  picking  whortle-berries,  I  guess 
I  surpassed  him  in  charges  upon  the  wild 


» Although  captain  of  rangers  at  the  outset, 
Lincoln  enlisted  as  a  private  of  volunteers  on 
the  second  call 


56  Xincolnics 

onions.  If  he  saw  any  live  fighting  In- 
dians *•  it  was  more  than  I  did,  but  I  had 
a  good  many  bloody  struggles  with  the 
mosquitoes;  and,  although  I  never  fainted 
from  the  loss  of  blood,  I  can  truly  say 
I  was  often  very  hungry.  ...  If 
I  should  ever  turn  Democrat  and  be 
taken  up  as  a  candidate  by  the  Democratic 
party,  I  protest  they  shall  not  make  fun 
of  me  as  they  have  of  General  Cass 
by  attempting  to  make  me  out  a  military 
hero." 

Between   the   Saddle  and  the 
Ground. 

It  was  providential  that  the  Western 
statesman  should  have  his  vision  widened. 
One  may  see  the  hand  of  Heaven,  not  the 
finger  of  Fate,  beckoning  him  to  that 
eventful  tour  in  Massachusetts,  in  1848, 
in  which  he  met  a  powerful  suggestion 


1  The  only  Indian  Lincoln's  company  cap- 
tured was  a  civilized  one,  whom  he  saved  from 


Xtncolnics  57 

for  the  great  act  of  his  life,  the  free- 
ing of  the  Southern  slaves.  In  Tremont 
Temple,  Boston,  in  September,  he  listened 
to  the  ringing  speech  of  William  H. 
Seward;  and  was  prompted  to  say  to  the 
orator,  that  night: 

"  Governor,  I  have  been  thinking  about 
what  you  said.  I  reckon  you  are  right! 
We  have  got  to  deal  with  this  slavery 
question." 

The  sincerity  of  his  conversion  to  the 
extreme  doctrine  may  be  inferred  from 
his  selection  of  Seward  for  his  Secretary 
of  State,  an  honor  that  nearly  cost  Seward 
his  life.  Time  came  when  the  pupil  and 
the  leader  were  to  move  side  by  side,  with 
the  latter  using  the  old  war-cry :  "  All 
men,  of  any  color,  free !  " 

"  Unite— And  the  Race  is  Ours." 

"  If  all  those  who  wish  to  keep  up 
the  character  of  the  Union,  who  do  not 
believe  in  enlarging  our  field,  but  in  keep- 


58  Xtncolnics 

vating  our  present  possessions,  making  it 
a  garden,  improving  the  morals  and  edu- 
cation of  the  people,  devoting  the  ad- 
ministrations to  this  purpose — all  real 
Whigs,  friends  of  good  honest  govern- 
ment— will  unite,  the  race  is  ours." 
Speech  at  Worcester,  Mass.,  1848. 

Judging  the  Consequences  Points 
out  our  Duty. 

"  When  divine  or  human  law  does  not 
clearly  point  out  what  is  our  duty,  we 
have  no  means  of  finding  out  what  it  is 
but  using  our  most  intelligent  judgment 
of  the  consequences." 

Speech   at   Worcester,   Mass.,    1848. 

"  Pantaloons    Large    Enough  for 

any  Man— Small  Enough  for 

any  Boy." 

"If  the  '  Free  Soil '  platform  held  any 
other  principle  than  opposition  to  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery  in  new  territory,  it 


lincolntca  59 

was  in  such  a  general  way  that  it  was  like 
the  pair  of  pantaloons  the  Yankee  pedler 
offered  for  sale,  '  Large  enough  for  any 
man — small  enough  for  any  boy.'  " 
Speech  at  Worcester,  Mass.,  Sept.,  1848. 

If  Youth  Would  and  Age  Could. 

When  Abraham  Lincoln  applied  in  1848 
to  President  Taylor,  in  whose  election  he 
had  vigorously  assisted,  for  the  com- 
missionership  of  the  Land  Office,  he  was 
offered  instead  the  governorship  of 
Oregon  Territory.  The  other  place  had 
been  assigned  to  Mr.  Justin  Butterfield 
of  Chicago.  During  the  war,  when  the 
son  of  the  successful  office-seeker  re- 
quested a  military  commission  of  Lincoln, 
now  President,  the  latter,  at  the  name, 
recurred  to  his  rebuff  and  remarked: 

"  I  have  hardly  ever  felt  so  bad  at 
any  failure,  and  I  have  often  been  sorry 
that  I  did  not  accept  the  governorship  of 
Oregon." 


60  Xfncolnicd 

"  How  fortunate  that  you  declined, 
sir,"  responded  the  young  man:  "  You 
might  have  come  back  as  Senator  [this 
was  a  sort  of  "  rider"  to  the  berth],  but 
you  would  never  have  been  President." 

"  You  are  probably  right,"  returned  the 
President,  reflecting. 

Elevate  Men,  Do    Not  Debase 
Them. 

"  As  I  understand  the  spirit  of  our  in- 
stitutions, it  is  designed  to  promote  the 
elevation  of  men.  I  am  therefore  hostile 
to  anything  that  tends  to  their  debase- 
ment." 

To  Rise,  Improve  Yourself. 

"  The  way  for  a  young  man  to  rise  is 
to  improve  himself  every  way  he  can, 
never  suspecting  that  anybody  wishes  to 
hinder  him." 

Letter  to  Judge  Herndon,  July,  1848. 


Uincolnfcs  61 

Stand  with  the  Right ! 

"  Stand  with  anybody  that  stands  right. 
Stand  with  him  while  he  is  right  and  part 
with  him  when  he  goes  wrong." 

"Let  none  Falter  Who  Thinks  He 
is  Right." 

Military  Glory. 

"  Military  glory — that  attractive  rain- 
bow that  rises  in  showers  of  blood;  that 
serpent's  eye  that  charms  to  destroy !  " 

"The  Monarch  of  All  He  Surveyed." 

In  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  E. 
F.  Beale,  afterwards  General,  was  Sur- 
veyor-general to  California,  where  he  sur- 
veyed— that  is,  conveyed — a  large  tract  of 
land  to  his  own  estate,  and  the  fact  was 
public  property.  He  himself  laughed 
with  his  censors  on  the  ground  that  he 
laughs  best  who  laughs  last.  This  an- 
nexation was  the  basis  of  President  Lin- 
coln's quotation  that  the  ex-official  was 
"  Monarch  of  all  he  surveyed." 


"Work,  Work,  Work  is  the  Main 
Thing." 

Abraham  Lincoln's  advice  to  a  young 
man  wishing  to  become  a  great  lawyer. 
(1850). 

No  Day  Without  its  Gain. 
"  I  do  not  think  much  of  a  man  who 
is    not    wiser    to-day    than    he    was    yes- 
terday." 

All  Nature  a  Mine. 

"  All  nature,  the  whole  world,  ma- 
terial, moral,  intellectual,  is  a  mine." 

Notes    for    a    Lecture. 

There  is  Another    Great  Man  of 
that  Name ! 

At  the  National  Republican  Convention, 
held  at  Philadelphia,  on  the  17th  June, 
1856,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  proposed  as 
nominee  for  the  Vice-Presidency.  The 
first  ballot  produced  for  him  110  votes. 
The  promising  news  reached  him  at  Ur- 
baria,  111.,  where  he  was  attending  court 


as  a  pleader.  The  telegram  was  so  rare 
a  feather  for  their  townsman's  cap  that 
the  cry  arose:  "  He  has  become  famous!  " 
Lincoln  read  of  the  honor  with  incredu- 
lity, no  doubt  thinking  that  "  there  were 
strong  men  before  Agamemnon,"  and 
remarked : 

"  There  is  a  distinguished  man  of  that 
name  in  Massachusetts." 

Indeed,  there  was,  the  Governor  of  that 
State,  Levi  Lincoln,  actually  descended, 
like  his  namesake,  from  the  Quaker  Sam- 
uel Lincoln,  of  Hingham,  Mass. 

"  Slavery  is  a  Curse  to  the  White 
Man." 

"  We  will  speak  for  freedom  and 
against  slavery,  until  everywhere,  on  this 
wide  land,  the  sun  shall  shine,  and  the 
rain  shall  fall,  and  the  wind  shall  blow 
upon  no  man  who  goes  forth  to  unre- 
quited toil.  .  .  .  Slavery  is  a  curse  to 
the  white  man,  wherever  it  has  existed.  ' 

Speech  at  Charleston,   111.,   1856. 


"  Slavery  is  Wrong  ! " 

The  author  proclaimed  this  sentiment 
as  the  profound  central  truth  of  the  Re- 
publican party;  the  whole  paragraph  is: 

"  Slavery  is  wrong,  and  ought  to  be 
dealt  with  as  wrong." 

Speech  at  Springfield,  111.,  June,  1858. 

"No  Man  Good  Enough  to  Govern 
Another.*' 

"  I  say  that  no  man  is  good  enough  to 
govern  another  man  without  that  other 
man's  consent.  I  say  this  is  the  leading 
principle,  the  sheet-anchor  of  American 
Republicanism." 

No  Moon,  No  Murder. 

In  1858,  Lincoln  was  engaged  in  the 
campaign  for  the  senatorship  which  later 
lifted  him  into  his  candidacy  for  the  Presi- 
dency. But  in  spite  of  his  having  for 
the  sake  of  this  contest  relinquished  for 
the  time  the  practice  of  law,  he  ac- 


Xincolnfcs  65 

quiesced  in  an  appeal  for  him  to  speak 
in  the  defence  of  the  son  of  an  old  neigh- 
bor of  Sangamon  County,  accused  of 
murder.  This  Armstrong  had  been 
"  mixed  up  "  with  some  fighters,  and,  as 
one  of  them  died  from  a  blow,  the  con- 
spiring witnesses  of  the  "  chance-medley  " 
affirmed  that  the  blow  was  struck  with 
an  instrument  in  the  accused  man's 
hands.  On  the  morning  of  the  trial  Lin- 
coln said  to  the  mother  of  the  prisoner, 
"  Your  son  will  be  free  before  sun- 
down," and  such  was  the  local  faith  in 
"  Honest  Abe  "  that  she  awaited  the  re- 
sult with  lessened  anxiety. 

Lincoln  had  sifted  out  the  evidence  so 
that  the  sole  dangerous  point  was  from 
one  witness,  who  persisted  in  repeating 
positively  that  he  had  seen  the  fatal  blow 
struck,  and  declared  the  weapon  to  have 
been  a  slung-shot. 

Question. — "  How  could  you  have  seen 
him  strike  the  fatal  blow  when,  according 
to  all  the  evidence,  the  quarrel  occurred 


between  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock  at 
night,  when  there  was  no  light  of  any 
kind?" 

The  man  quickly  replied :  "  I  saw  it  by 
the  light  of  the  moon,  which  was  shining 
brightly." 

This  seemed  decisive,  but  the  advocate, 
prepared  at  all  points,  said: 

"  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  I  hold  in  my 
hand  the  proof  that  on  the  night  of  the 
supposed  murder  there  was  no  moon  in 
the  sky!" 

He  produced  the  almanac  to  convince 
the  court,  and  the  man  was  released  to 
gladden  his  mother.  Lincoln  refused  any 
fee  for  this  service  to  a  neighbor. 

Make  a  Man  Beat  Himself. 

On  the  eve  of  the  first  of  the  tilts  in 
the  demagogical  debate  of  Lincoln  and 
Douglas,  a  friend  of  the  former  assured 
him  that  he  would  beat  the  more  prac- 
tised orator  and  obtain  the  senatorship 
if  he  made  the  best  use  of  his  opportunity. 


Xfncolnfcs  67 

"  No,"  was  the  answer.  "  I  can't  beat 
him  for  the  Senate,  but  I  '11  make  him 
beat  himself  for  the  Presidency." 

"  But/'  adds  Mr.  Leonard  Swett,  who 
recounts  the  prophecy,  "  at  that  moment 
Lincoln  had  no  more  idea  of  being  nomi- 
nated for  and  elected  to  that  office  [the 
Presidency]  than  of  being  crowned  Em- 
peror of  China." 

Mrs.  Lincoln,  however,  had  the  thought 
twenty  years  earlier. 

Make  Marks  not  to  be  Forgotten. 

The  Douglas-Lincoln  debates  fixed  the 
slavery  problem  as  "  the  great  and  dur- 
able question  of  the  age."  Lincoln  also 
thought  that  the  destinies  of  the  nation 
might  hang  upon  it.  In  referring  to 
that  electioneering  duel  he  said: 

"  Though  I  now  sink  out  of  view  and 
shall  be  forgotten,  I  believe  I  have  made 
some  marks  which  will  tell  for  the  cause 
of  civil  liberty  long  after  I  am  gone." 


68  Xtncolnics 

"  Revolutionize  Through  the  Ballot- 
Box." 

Although  Lincoln  espoused  the  cause 
of  freedom,  he  did  not  at  once  side  with 
the  extremists,  and  he  was  incorrectly 
ranked  in  1858  with  the  Abolitionists. 
Indeed,  he  said  flatly  at  the  time  of  that 
agitation : 

"  Let  there  be  peace !  Revolutionize 
through  the  ballot-box;  and  restore  the 
Government  once  more  to  the  affections 
and  hearts  of  men  by  making  it  express, 
as  it  was  intended  to  do,  the  highest  spirit 
of  justice  and  liberty." 

"  Win,  or  Die  A-Trying!" 

When  Judge  H.  W.  Beckwith,  of  Dan- 
ville, came  over  to  Ottawa,  where  the  de- 
bates were  to  begin  to  which  Lincoln  had 
challenged  his  opposing  candidate, 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  he  found  his  friend 
looking  careworn.  Douglas  had  at  first 
rejected  the  challenge,  but  later  accepted 
it.  His  supporters  and  not  a  few  of  the 


Xincolnicd  69 

Lincolnites  supposed  that  the  first  en- 
counter would  see  "  the  Little  Giant " 
(Douglas  was  a  stumpy,  thick-set  man, 
like  Daniel  Webster  in  miniature)  "  chaw 
up  Old  Abe." 

But  Lincoln  threw  off  his  sombreness 
and,  accosting  Mr.  Beckwith  with  his  old 
free  and  easy  manner,  asked  after  friends 
where  he  "  hailed  from,"  and,  with  a  cer- 
tain familiar  abruptness  not  unusual  in 
him,  said: 

"  Come  sit  down,  and  I  will  tell  you 
a  story."  He  began  by  repeating  some- 
thing like  the  passage  in  Crockett's 
Memoirs,  accepted  at  that  time  in  the 
West  as  realistic,  of  the  boy  fighting  a 
fist-fight  in  the  woods,  and  added: 

"  You  see,  the  other  fellow  is  not  saying 
a  word.  His  arms  are  at  his  side,  his 
fists  are  closely  doubled  up,  his  head  is 
drawn  to  the  shoulder,  and  his  teeth  are 
set  firmly  together.  He  is  saving  his 
wind  for  the  fight,  and,  as  sure  as  it 
/mmes  off,  he  will  win  it,  or  die  a-trying." 


70  Ztncolntcs 

Inferable  Evidence. 

In  June,  1858,  in  the  first  of  the  Doug- 
las-Lincoln debates,  the  latter  cited,  in 
reference  to  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act, 
the  proceedings  under  it  by  Presidents 
Franklin  Pierce  and  James  Buchanan, 
and  the  Dred  Scott  decision  by  Chief  Jus- 
tice Roger  B.  Taney,  as  resembling  the 
frame  of  a  house: 

"  When  we  see  a  lot  of  framed  timbers, 
different  portions  of  which  we  know  have 
been  gotten  out  at  different  times  and 
places  and  by  different  workmen, — 
Stephen,  Franklin,  Roger,  and  James,  for 
instance, — and  we  see  these  timbers  joined 
together,  and  see  they  exactly  make  the 
frame  of  a  house  or  a  mill,  all  the  tenons 
and  mortises  exactly  fitting,  and  all  the 
lengths  and  proportions  of  the  different 
pieces  exactly  adapted  to  their  respective 
places,  and  not  a  piece  too  many  or  too 
few,  not  omitting  even  scaffolding — or,  if 
a  single  piece  be  lacking,  we  see  the  place 
in  the  frame  exactly  fitted  and  prepared 


Zincolnics  71 

yet  to  bring  such  a  piece  in — in  such  a 
case  we  find  it  impossible  not  to  believe 
that  Stephen  and  Franklin  and  Roger 
and  James  all  understood  one  another 
from  the  beginning,  and  all  worked  upon 
a  common  plan  or  draft,  drawn  up  before 
the  first  blow  was  struck." 

A  House  Divided  Cannot  Stand. 

It  was  in  this  speech  that  Lincoln  used 
the  famous  symbol  of  the  "  house  di- 
vided against  itself,"  which  gave  the  key 
to  the  campaign  he  proposed — "  A  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  be- 
lieve this  Government  cannot  endure  per- 
manently half  slave  and  half  free.  .  .  . 
I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall,  but  I 
do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It 
will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the 
other." 

When  his  friends  and  advisers  ob- 
jected to  his  using  the  expression  of  the 
"divided  house,"  Lincoln  said: 


72  Xfncolnfce 

"  That  expression  is  a  truth  of  all  ex- 
perience. The  proposition  is  indisputably 
true,  and  has  been  true  for  more  than  six 
thousand  years,  and — I  will  deliver  this 
speech  as  it  is  written.  I  would  rather 
be  defeated  with  this  expression  in  the 
speech  than  be  victorious  without  it." 

Asked  again,  later,  to  recall  his  state- 
ment or  to  revise  it,  he  replied: 

"  If  I  had  to  draw  a  pen  across  my  rec- 
ord and  erase  my  whole  life  from  sight, 
and  I  had  one  poor  gift  or  choice  left  as 
to  what  I  should  save  from  the  wreck,  I 
should  choose  that  speech  and  leave  it  to 
the  world  unerased." 

Easier  to  Make  a  New  Speech  than 
an  Old  One. 

In  the  discussions  of  1858,  it  was  no- 
ticed that  Douglas  clinched  his  nails  of 
rhetoric  by  repeated  blows,  while  the 
younger  contestant  seldom  repeated  his 
images  and  allusions.  It  was  a  question 


Xtncolnics  73 

of  fertility  of  invention  and  of  resources, 
like  the  composer  Rossini,  who,  when  writ- 
ing an  opera  in  bed,  preferred  to  com- 
pose an  entire  aria  to  getting  off  the 
couch  and  seeking  some  leaves  which  had 
blown  beneath  it. 

Practice  Before  and  Behind  the  Bar. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Cuyler  has  cited  Abraham 
Lincoln  among  the  illustrious  upholders 
of  temperance  and  is  justified  in  so 
doing.  This  does  not  conflict  with  the 
fact  that  the  village  stores  with  which 
Lincoln  was  connected  as  assistant  and 
proprietor  in  his  earlier  years  were 
groggeries  as  well  as  groceries — it  was  in- 
evitable at  the  time.  The  bar  was  as  set 
a  fixture  as  the  counter.  Rum  and  whis- 
key were  the  two  medicines  most  gener- 
ally used.  The  ex-bartender  did  not  deny 
the  fact  although  it  was  a  light  stigma  to 
bear.  Nevertheless,  in  the  Douglas-Lin- 
coln debates,  the  former  had  the  unkind- 


74  Xincolnica 

ness  to  utter  a  slur  about  his  adversary 
having  more  practice  behind  the  bar 
than  before  it — for  Lincoln  had  but  re- 
cently been  admitted  to  plead  in  the 
courts.  It  was  an  allusion  capable  of 
happy  retort.  It  was  a  common  cry  that 
Judge  and  Senator  Douglas  was  a  "  judge 
of  good  liquor,"  as  the  saying  goes.  It 
was  the  era  of  good  living,  when  Martin 
Van  Buren  was  a  "  prince  of  good 
fellows." 

"  This/'  returned  Lincoln  with  his  in- 
cipient wink  to  accentuate  the  humor, 
"  applies  with  similar  force  to  my  digni- 
fied opponent,  as,  while  I  have  practised 
behind  the  bar,  he  has  practised  be- 
fore it  !  " 

No  Cabbages  Sprouting  on  My 
Face. 

It  was  probably  the  contrast  in  the 
personal  aspect  of  the  champions  of  the 
Democratic  and  the  Republican  parties  in 
1858.,  in  Illinois.,  that  infused  noticeable 


Xincolnics  75 

heat  into  the  utterances  of  both  orators 
and  that  piqued  the  hearers;  and,  as  the 
junior  disputant  pointed  out,  their  ca- 
reers were  unlike  in  progress  and  fruit. 

"  With  me,"  said  Abraham  Lincoln, 
"  the  race  of  ambition  has  been  a  flat  fail- 
ure. [He  had  failed  in  a  late  election.] 
With  Mr.  Douglas,  it  has  been  one  of 
splendid  success.  .  .  .  All  the  anxious 
politicians  of  his  party  have  been  looking 
upon  him  as  certain  to  be  the  President 
of  the  United  States.  They  have  seen 
in  his  jolly,  round,  fruitful  face,  post- 
offices,  land-offices,  marshalships,  and 
Cabinet  appointments,  charge-ships  and 
foreign  missions,  bursting  and  sprouting 
out,  in  wonderful  exuberance,  ready  to  be 
laid  hold  of  by  their  greedy  hands.  And  as 
they  have  been  gazing  upon  this  attractive 
picture  so  long,  they  cannot  .  .  .  bring 
themselves  to  give  up  the  charming  hope; 
but,  with  greedier  anxiety,  they  rush 
about  him,  sustain  him  and  give  him 
marches,  triumphal  entries,  and  recep^ 


76  Ztncolnlcs 

tions  beyond  what  even  in  the  days  of 
his  highest  prosperity  they  could  have 
brought  about  in  his  favor. 

"  On  the  contrary,  nobody  has  ever 
expected  me  to  be  President.  In  my 
poor,  lean,  lank  face,  nobody  has  ever 
seen  that  any  cabbages  were  sprouting 
out!  These  are  disadvantages  .!  /«  • 
that  the  Republicans  labor  under.  We 
have  to  fight  this  battle  upon  principle, 
and  upon  principle  alone." 

The  pain  and  pitifulness  of  this  self- 
depreciation  lie  in  its  truth — the  Ugly 
Duckling  knew  his  physical  imperfec- 
tions aesthetically  and  jested  at  them. 

"  No  Royalty  in  Our  Carriage." 
Although  in  1858  there  were  neither 
Wagner  nor  Pullman  cars,  a  special  train 
was  provided  for  Senator  Douglas,  while 
Lincoln  was  consigned  to  an  ordinary  one. 
Once,  when  the  decorated  coaches 
flaunted  by,  the  lowly  candidate,  side- 
tracked in  a  freight  train,  said: 


Ifncolnfcs  77 

"  The  gentleman  in  that  turnout  evi- 
dently smelt  no  royalty  in  our  carriage !  " 

"  Hold  My  Coat  while  I  Stone 
Stephen!" 

In  the  debate  between  Douglas  and 
Lincoln,  in  1858,  the  former,  a  practised 
and  popular  demagogue,  led  off  with  so 
captivating  a  discourse  that  his  oppo- 
nent's adherents  believed  the  battle  was 
won  and  that  their  spokesman  would  not 
have  a  hearing  from  the  enthralled  crowd. 
But  Lincoln  got  up  as  soon  only  as  the 
cheers  died  away,  looking  taller  and 
more  angular  than  ever,  and  "  shucking  " 
his  long  linen  duster,  which  he  dropped 
on  the  arm  of  a  young  bystander,  re- 
marked in  his  piping  voice,  which  never- 
theless had  a  far-pervading  tone: 
"  Hold  my  coat  while  I  stone  Stephen  !  " 

This  pun  annulled  the  good  effect  of 
the  previous  harangue,  and  the  disputant 
was  listened  to  with  attention. 


78  Xincolnicd 

It  is  interesting  to  recall  that  the  two 
contestants  should  in  youth  have  been 
rivals  for  the  hand  of  the  same  woman. 
A  further  incident  in  their  relations  may 
be  noted:  At  the  inauguration  of  Lincoln, 
Douglas  had  the  courtesy  to  hold  Lin- 
coln's hat.  Moreover,  the  "  Roger "  of 
the  episode  recorded  on  page  70,  ad- 
ministered the  oath  of  office,  while  the 
"  James "  also  cited  was  the  retiring 
President,  Buchanan. 

Familiarize   with   Chains   and  You 
Prepare  to  Wear  Them. 

"  Our  reliance  [against  tyranny]  is 
the  love  of  liberty  which  God  has  planted 
in  us.  Our  defence  is  in  the  spirit  which 
prizes  liberty  as  the  heritage  of  all  men, 
in  all  lands — everywhere.  Destroy  this 
spirit  and  you  have  planted  the  seeds  of 
despotism  at  your  own  doors.  Familiarize 
yourselves  with  the  chains  of  bondage  and 
you  prepare  your  own  limbs  to  wear  them. 


Xincolnicd  79 

Accustomed  to  trample  on  the  rights  of 
others,  you  have  lost  the  genius  of  your 
own  independence,  and  become  fit  subjects 
of  the  first  cunning  tyrant  who  rises 
among  you." 

Speech  at  Edwardsville,  111.,  Sept.  13, 
1858. 

Fighting  Proves  Nothing. 

"  I  am  informed  that  my  distinguished 
friend  [Douglas]  yesterday  became  a  lit- 
tle excited — nervous  perhaps, — and  said 
something  about  fighting,  as  though  re- 
ferring to  a  pugilistic  encounter  between 
him  and  myself.  .  .  .  Well,  I  merely  wish 
to  say  that  I  shall  fight  neither  Judge 
Douglas  nor  his  second.  ...  In  the 
first  place,  a  fight  would  prove  nothing 
which  is  in  issue  in  this  contest.  .  .  . 
If  my  fighting  Judge  Douglas  would  not 
prove  anything,  it  would  certainly  prove 
nothing  for  me  to  fight  his  bottle-holder. 
My  second  reason  ...  is  that  I  don't 


8o  Xincolnics 

believe  the  Judge  wants  it  himself.  He 
and  I  are  about  the  best  friends  in  the 
world,  and  when  we  get  together,  he 
would  no  more  think  of  fighting 
me  than  of  fighting  his  wife.  There- 
fore, when  the  Judge  talked  about 
fighting,  he  was  not  giving  vent  to  any  ill 
feeling  of  his  own,  but  merely  trying  to 
excite — well,  enthusiasm  against  me  on  the 
part  of  his  audience.  And  as  I  find  he 
was  tolerably  successful,  we  will  call  it 
quits." 

Speech  at  Havana,  111.,  1858. 

"  Return  to  the  Fountain ! " 

"  My  countrymen,  if  you  have  been 
taught  doctrines  conflicting  with  the  great 
landmarks  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence; if  you  have  listened  to  sugges- 
tions which  would  take  away  from  its 
grandeur  and  mutilate  the  fair  symmetry 
of  its  proportions;  if  you  have  been  in- 
clined to  believe  that  all  men  are  not 


Xtncolnfcs  81 

created  equal  in  those  inalienable  rights 
enumerated  in  our  chart  of  liberty,  let  me 
entreat  you  to  come  back!  Return  to  the 
Fountain  whose  waters  spring  close  by 
the  blood  of  the  Revolution.  You  may 
do  anything  with  me  you  choose,  if  you 
will  but  heed  these  sacred  principles. 
I  charge  you  to  drop  every  paltry  and 
insignificant  thought  for  any  man's  suc- 
cess. It  is  nothing;  I  am  nothing;  Judge 
Douglas  is  nothing.  But  do  not  destroy 
that  immortal  emblem  of  humanity — the 
Declaration  of  Independence." 

Speech  at  Beardsville,  111.,  Aug.  12, 
1858.  Characterized  by  Horace 
White,  reporting  it  for  the  Chicago 
Tribune,  as  Lincoln's  "  greatest  in- 
spiration." 

The  Bulwark  of  Liberty. 

"  What  constitutes  the  bulwark  of  our 
liberty  and  independence?  It  is  not  oui 
frowning  battlements,  our  bustling  sea- 


82  Xincolntca 

coasts,  our  army  and  our  navy.  These  are 
not  our  reliance  against  tyranny.  Our  re- 
liance is  the  love  of  liberty  which  God  has 
planted  in  us." 

Speech  at  Edwardsville,  111.,  Sept.   13, 
1858. 

"  The  Boy  Who  Did  not  Weigh  as 

Much  as  Expected,  and  He  Knew 

He  Would  n't!" 

In  the  Douglas-Lincoln  debates,  a 
flurry  was  originated  by  a  trick — fair 
enough  perhaps  as  matters  are  in  "  love, 
war  and  politics."  Resolutions  adopted 
by  a  hole-in-a-corner  "  meeting  of  Ab- 
olitionists were  attributed  to  a  council 
at  which  Lincoln  was,  furthermore,  ac- 
cused of  presiding.  The  assertion,  when 
disproved,  greatly  injured  the  Democratic 
cause.  Horace  Greeley,  in  a  style  quite 
Lincolnic,  wrote  on  this  blunder: 

"  Douglas  is  like  the  man's  boy  who  did 
not  weigh  as  much  as  he  expected,  and 


Xincolnfcs  83 

he  always  knew  he  would  n't."  1  Lincoln 
capped  the  slip  by  doubting  the  genuine- 
ness of  a  document  which  his  adversary 
produced — after  the  Springfield  "  for- 
gery!" 

Playing  Cuttlefish. 

"  Judge  Douglas  is  playing  cuttlefish — 
a  small  species  of  fish  that  has  no  mode 
of  defending  itself  when  pursued,  except 
by  throwing  out  a  black  fluid  which  makes 
the  water  so  dark  the  enemy  cannot  see 
it;  and  thus  it  escapes." 

Speech  at  Charleston,  111.,  1858. 

"The  Eternal  Struggle  between 
Right  and  Wrong." 

"  Slavery  is  the  real  issue.  It  will  con- 
tinue in  this  country  when  these  poor 

1  The  paragraph  Greeley  misquoted  was  thus 
printed  in  1838.  DEFINITE  INFORMATION— 
"  Well,  Robert,  how  much  did  your  pig  weigh  ?" 
"  It  did  not  weitfh  as  much  as  I  expected,  and 
I  always  thought  it,  wouldn't." — Detroit  Spec- 
tator. 


84  Xtncolntcs 

tongues  of  Judge  Douglas  and  myself 
shall  be  silent.  It  is  the  eternal  struggle 
between  two  principles — Right  and  Wrong 
— throughout  the  world.  .  .  .  The  one 
is  the  common  right  of  humanity,  and  the 
other  the  divine  right  of  kings.  .  .  . 
It  is  the  same  spirit  that  says: 

'  You  work  and  toil  and  earn  bread — 
and  I'll  eat  it!' 

"  No  matter  in  what  shape  it  comes, 
whether  from  the  mouth  of  a  king  who 
seeks  to  bestride  the  people  of  his  own 
nation  and  live  by  the  fruit  of  their  la- 
bor, or  from  one  race  of  men  as  an  apol- 
ogy for  enslaving  another  race,  it  is  the 
same  tyrannical  principal." 

Last  debate  between  Douglas  and  Lin- 
coln,  1858. 

Atalanta  and  the  Apple. 
Lincoln   lost  the  prize   of  the   senator- 
ship  of  Illinois  to  his  personal  and  politi- 
cal   antagonist,    Stephen    A.    Douglas,    by 
persisting  in  a  course  in  regard  to  slavery 


Zincolntcs  85 

which  was  counter  to  the  advice  of  his 
immediate  friends.  He  related  the  follow- 
ing story  to  illustrate  that  he  perfectly 
well  knew  what  was  at  stake.  He  saw 
that  while  Douglas,  a  "  trimmer,"  might 
win  the  lesser  office,  he  would  damn  him- 
self for  the  prospect  of  being  the  next 
President.  It  so  fell  out.  The  story  runs 
in  this  guise: 

"  There  was  an  old  farmer  out  our  way, 
who  had  a  fair  daughter  and  a  fine  apple- 
tree,  each  of  which  he  prized  as  '  the  ap- 
ple of  his  eye.' 

"  One  of  the  courters  '  sparking '  up 
for  her  hand  was  a  dashing  young  fellow, 
while  his  rival  next  in  consequence  was 
but  a  plain  person  in  face  and  speech, 
whom,  however,  the  farmer  favored,  no 
doubt  from  '  Like  liking  Like/  (The  dash- 
ing young  chap  was  afterwards  hanged, 
by  the  way.)  One  day,  the  two  hap- 
pened to  meet  at  the  farmer's  fence.  It 
enclosed  his  orchard  where  the  famous 
Baldwin  flourished.  That  year  was  the 


86  2,incolnfc0 

off-year,  but,  as  somewhiles  occurs,  the 
yield,  though  sparse,  comprised  some  rare 
beauties.  There  was  one,  a  '  whopper,' 
on  which  the  farmer  had  centred  his 
care  as  if  for  a  human  pet.  He  looked 
after  it  well,  and  saw  it  heave  up  into 
plumpness  with  joy.  When  Dashing 
Jack  came  up,  he  saw  his  fellow-beau  just 
hefting  a  stone. 

'  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  that 
rock? '  asked  he,  careless-like,  though 
somehow  or  other  interested,  too,  as  we 
are  in  anything  a  rival  does  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  our  sweetheart. 

'  Why,  I  was  just  a-going  to  see  if  I 
could  knock  off  that  big  red  apple,  that 
is  all.' 

"'You   can't   do   it   in   the   first   try!' 
taunted    the    dasher. 
"  '  Neither   can   you.     Bet ! ' 

"  Jack  would  not  make  any  bet  with 
plain  John,  but  he  took  up  a  pebble  and, 
contrmptously  whistling  through  his  fine 
regular  teeth,  shied,  and,  sure  as  fate! 


Xincolntcs  87 

knocked  the  big  Baldwin  in  the  girth  and 
sent  it  hopping  off  the  limb.  Then,  as 
the  victors  are  entitled  to  the  spoil,  he 
went  in,  picked  up  the  fruit,  and  was 
walking  up  to  the  house  when  whom 
should  he  run  up  against  but  the  old  man ! 
Now,  to  see  that  apple  off,  and  to  see  any 
man  munching  it  like  a  crab,  was  too  much 
for  his  nerves.  He  did  not  stop  to  say 
4  Meal  or  Flour  ?  '  but,  wearing  these  here 
copper-toed  boots  such  as  were  a  novelty 
in  that  section  'bout  then,  he  raised  the 
young  man  so  that  he  and  the  apple,  to 
which  he  clung,  landed  on  this  side  of 
the  fence  together,  in  two-two's. 

"Then?  well!  then,  the  plain  John 
swallowed  a  snicker  or  two,  and  went  right 
in,  condoled  with  the  old  fellow  on  his 
loss  of  the  pet  Baldy,  and  asked  for  the 
girl  right  slick. 

"  Dashing  Jack  got  the  apple,  but  it 
was  t'  other  who  got  the  gal." 

Truly,  Douglas  secured  the  senator- 
ship,  but  Lincoln  won  the  Presidency. 


88  Xincolmcs 

(Another  version  substitutes  a  pear  for 
the  apple,  but  the  gist  is  the  same  and 
the  application  thereof.) 

"  After  Larger  Game." 

In  the  debates  of  1858,  Lincoln  had 
impaled  his  adversary  on  the  dilemma: 
"  Could  a  Territory  exclude  slavery  prior 
to  a  State  constitution?  "  If  Douglas 
said  "  No  "  he  would  offend  the  Illinois 
people  and  would  lose  the  local  prize;  if 
he  said  "  Yes/'  he  would  offend  the  South 
and  lose  their  votes  in  the  coming  Presi- 
dential election.  Douglas  answered  eva- 
sively. He  won  the  place  in  Washington 
for  the  time,  but  his  "  Freeport  doctrine," 
or  "  unfriendly  legislation,"  prohibited 
his  carrying  the  South  in  the  greater 
contest. 

In  I860,  when  Lincoln  had  won  the 
stake  for  which  his  rival  had  been  play- 
ing, a  friend  recalled  that,  when  the  weap- 
ons were  forged,  he  had  objected  to  this 


Xtncolnicd  89 

very  one  because  it  wounded  the  hand  that 
made  it,  and  sagely  added: 

"  We  were  both  right,  for  the  question 
lost  Douglas  the  Presidency  but  lost  you 
the  senatorship." 

"  I  was  after  larger  game,"  remarked 
the  President. 

Demonstration  More  than  Proof  and 
Reason. 

"  In  the  course  of  my  law  reading,  I 
constantly  came  upon  the  word  '  demon- 
strate.' I  thought,  at  first,  that  I  un- 
derstood its  meaning,  but  soon  became 
satisfied  that  I  did  not.  I  said  to  myself: 
What  do  I  mean  when  I  '  demonstrate  * 
more  than  when  I  '  reason '  or  '  prove '  ? 
How  does  '  demonstration '  differ  from 
any  other  proof?  I  consulted  all  the 
dictionaries  and  books  of  reference  I  could 
find,  but  with  no  better  result.  You 
might  as  well  have  defined  '  blue '  to  a 
blind  man.  At  last,  I  said:  Lincoln,  you 


90  Xfncolnicd 

can  never  make  a  lawyer,  if  you  do  not 
understand  what  '  demonstrate '  means. 
I  left  my  situation  [law  clerk]  at  Spring- 
field, went  home  to  my  father's  house, 
and  stayed  there  until  I  could  give  any 
proposition  in  the  Six  Books  of  Euclid 
at  sight.  I  then  found  out  what  '  demon- 
strate '  means." 

Lincoln,  to  Dr.  Gulliver,  of  Norwich, 
Conn.,  1859. 

No  Surrender. 

"  The  cause  of  civil  liberty  must  not 
be  surrendered  at  the  end  of  one  or  of  a 
hundred  defeats!" 

[Letter  to  Chairman  Judd,  Republican 
Convention,  1859-] 

American  Public  Opinion. 

"  Public  opinion  in  this  country  is 
everything." 

Speech  in  Ohio,  1859- 


Xtncolnics  91 

Natural  Perpetual  Motion. 

"  The  mammoth  and  the  mastodon 
have  gazed  on  Niagara.  In  that  long, 
long  time,  never  still  for  a  single  moment, 
never  dried,  frozen,  slept,  or  rested." 

Notes  for  a  Lecture,  1859. 

(Alas!  In  fifty  years,  Niagara  is 
threatened  to  be  a  dry  bed,  while  the 
water,  diverted  for  utilitarian  uses,  be- 
comes but  the  tailraces  of  mills  and  fac- 
tories. ("  To  what  base  uses  we  may 
turn!'1)  . 

"The  Plain  People." 

"  I  am  most  happy  that  the  plain  peo~ 
pie  understand  and  appreciate  this." 
Speech,  in  Ohio,  1859. 

"  Wealth  Is  a  Superfluity  of  What 
We  Don't  Need." 

President   Lincoln    to   Locke    ("  Petro- 
leum  V.    Nasby.") 


42  Kncolnicd 

"  I  Know  that  I  am  Right,  because  I 
Know  that  Liberty  Is  Right." 

Said  to  Newton  Bateman,  Supt.  Public 
Instruction,    Illinois,    1 860. 

"Faith  in  God  is  Indispensable  to 
Successful  Statesmanship." 

To  N.  Bateman,  Supt.  Public  Instruc- 
tion,  Illinois,   Nov.,   I860. 

"  Understanded  of  the  People." 

Q. — "  How  did  you  get  this  unusual 
power  of  putting  things  clearly? 

A. — "Among  my  earliest  recollections,  I 
remember  how  I  used  to  get  irritated  when 
anybody  talked  to  me  in  a  way  I  could 
not  understand.  ...  I  can  remember 
going  into  my  little  bedroom,  after  hear- 
ing the  neighbors  talk  with  my  father, 
and  trying  to  make  out  what  was  the  exact 
meaning  of  some  of  their — to  me — dark 
sayings.  I  could  not  sleep  when  I  got 
on  such  a  hunt  after  an  idea,  until  I  had 


Xincolnfca  9} 

caught  it;  and  when  I  thought  I  had  got 
it,  I  was  not  satisfied  until  I  had  re- 
peated it  over  and  over,  and  had  put  it  in 
language  plain  enough,  as  I  thought,  for 
any  boy  I  knew  to  comprehend.  This 
was  a  kind  of  passion  with  me,  and  it  has 
stuck  by  me;  for  I  am  never  easy  now 
when  I  am  handling  a  thought  till  I  have 
bounded  it  north,  and  bounded  it  south, 
and  bounded  it  east,  and  bounded  it  west." 
To  Dr.  Gulliver,  Norwich,  Conn.,  1859. 

The  Ideal  Income  in  the  Fifties. 

On  Lincoln's  Eastern  tour,  with  the 
view  of  making  him  known  outside  of  his 
"  section,"  he  visited  New  York.  Meet- 
ing another  of  "  the  Illini,"  who  had  pros- 
pered, and  who  told  him  that  he  had  made 
a  hundred  thousand  dollars,  Lincoln  ob- 
served : 

"  I  have  the  cottage  [a  two-story  wooden 
frame  house,  with  extension,  eight  rooms] 
in  Springfield,  and  about  eight  thousand 


94  Zincolnics 

dollars  in  money.  If  they  make  me  Vice- 
President  with  Seward,  as  some  say  they 
will,  I  hope  I  shall  be  able  to  increase  it 
to  twenty  thousand;  and  that  is  as  much 
as  any  man  ought  to  want." 

"  Right  makes  Might." 

"  Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes 
might;  and  in  that  faith  let  us,  to  the 
end,  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we  under- 
stand it." 

Speech  at  Cooper  Institute,  N.  Y., 
I860. 

"Caesar   an*    Pompey    Berry  much 
Alike— 'Specially  Pompey!" 

"  I  have  no  prejudice  against  the 
Southern  people.  They  are  just  what  we 
should  be  in  their  situation.  If  slavery 
did  not  now  exist  among  them  they 
would  not  introduce  it.  If  it  did  now 
exist  among  us  we  should  not  instantly 
give  it  up." 


Hf  nee  In  tea  95 

The  Lincoln-Hamlin  Anagram. 

At  the  time  of  the  election  of  the  Presi- 
dential ticket  comprising  Lincoln  and 
Hannibal  Hamlin,  it  was  noted  that  the 
combination  of  the  two  names  presented 
a  peculiar  result. 
For  instance: 

Ham    Lin 
Lin      Coin 

Read  up  and  down  and  then  across. 
Now,  again: 

Abra-Hamlin-Coln 

Can  you  find  two  other  names  of  two 
other  men  whose  official  lives  and  whose 
names  combine  as  these  do? 

Whiskers,  or  No  Votes  ! 

Towards  the  end  of  his  first  Presiden- 
tial campaign,  Lincoln,  who  had  always 
been  clean-shaven,  a  fashion  which  was 
pretty  general  in  the  fifties,  astonished 
his  friends  by  growing  the  hirsute 


96  Efncolntcs 

adornment  seen  in  his  latest  photographs. 
Asked  by  an  intimate  friend  what  had  in- 
duced the  adoption  of  the  new  mode,  he 
answered : 

"  Two  young  ladies  at  Buffalo  wrote  me 
that  they  wanted  their  fathers  and  beaux 
to  vote  for  me,  but  I  was  so  homely- 
looking  that  the  men  refused.  The  ladies 
insisted  that  if  I  would  only  grow  whis- 
kers it  would  improve  my  appearance,  and 
I  would  get  four  more  votes!  So  I  grew 
whiskers." 

Told  by  Mr.  J.  H.  Littlefield. 

Rather  be  Assassinated  than  Sur- 
render Equal  Rights. 

These  prophetic  lines  appear  in  the 
speech  of  the  President-elect  made  at  In- 
dependence Hall,  Philadelphia,  on  the 
22d  of  February,  1861: 

"  But  if  this  country  cannot  be  saved 
without  giving  up  that  principle  [of  equal 
rights],  I  was  about  to  say  I  would 


Uincolntcs  9) 

rather  be  assassinated  on  this  spot  than 
surrender  it." 

(The  plot,  through  apprehension  of 
which  the  President  was  induced  to  en- 
ter the  seat  of  Government  surreptitiously, 
is  now  believed  to  have  been  a  deception.) 

"A  Hard  Nut  to  Crack." 

"  The  authors  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  meant  it  to  be — as,  thank 
God,  it  is  now  proving  itself — a  stumbling- 
block  to  those  who  in  after  times  might 
seek  to  turn  a  free  people  back  into  the 
hateful  paths  of  despotism.  They  knew 
the  proneness  of  prosperity  to  breed 
tyrants,  and  they  meant  when  such  should 
reappear  in  this  fair  land  and  commence 
their  vocation  they  should  find  left  at 
least  one  hard  nut  to  crack." 

The  Chorus  of  the  Union. 

(To  the  Southern  States:) 
"  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends.    We 


98  Xtncolntcs 

must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion 
may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break  our 
bonds  of  affection.  The  mystic  chords  of 
memory,  stretching  from  every  battle-field 
and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and 
hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will 
yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when 
again  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by 
the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 

First     Inaugural    Address,     March     4, 
1861. 

Take  Time! 

"  Nothing  valuable  can  be  lost  by  tak- 
ing time." 

Inaugural   Address,    1861. 

The  People  Are  the  Rightful 
Masters. 

"  Unless  my  rightful  masters,  the 
American  people,  shall  withhold  the  re- 
quisite means  or  direct  the  contrary." 

Inaugural   Address,    1861. 


Xincolnics  99 

Owners  of  Our  Country. 

"  This  country,  with  its  institutions,  be- 
longs to  the  people  who  inhabit  it." 
Inaugural  Address,  1861. 

Confidence  in  Popular  Justice. 

"  Why  should  there  not  be  a  patient 
confidence  in  the  ultimate  justice  of  the 
people." 

Inaugural  Address,  1861. 

My  War. 

One  of  the  slanders  current  during  the 
outset  of  the  civil  strife  was  that  the 
President  was  merely  the  figure-head  be- 
hind which  the  Cabinet  officers  exercised, 
in  each  capacity,  an  autocracy.  But  the 
facts  have  since  proved  that  nearly  every 
important  act  had  the  initiative  in  Lin- 
coln's brain,  and  nearly  all  the  manifes- 
tation in  force  from  his  hand.  In  the 
annual  report  of  Secretary  Cameron,  the 
advice  was  promulgated  that  the  slaves 


ioo  Ifncelnfcs 

should  be  armed  in  order  to  rise  success* 
fully  against  their  masters — an  idea  em* 
bodied  in  the  Emancipation  Act,  long  helcf 
in  abeyance  by  the  President.  When  the 
latter  came  to  that  paragraph  in  the  re^ 
port,  he  scratched  it  out  with  his  pen,  in- 
dignantly remarking : 

"  This  is  a  question  which  belongs  ex- 
clusively to  me." 

Letting  Rooms  in  a  House  Afire  ! 

After  his  inauguration,  President  Lin- 
coln was  so  continuously  beset  by  office- 
seekers  that  he  was  almost  compelled  to 
neglect  measures  for  the  preservation  of 
the  Union.  "If  this  keeps  on,"  said  he, 
"I  shall  be  like  a  man  who  is  busy  let- 
ting lodgings  at  one  end  of  his  house  while 
the  other  end  is  afire." 

"Accuse  not  a  Servant  to  his 

Master." 

Lincoln's  accessibility  resembled  that  of 
the  Oriental  potentates,  enjoined  by  their 


Xtncolnics  101 

religion  to  hear  all  comers.  Like  them, 
too,  he  was  mainly  approached  by  per- 
sons with  grievances,  presented  with  a 
view  of  displacing  some  one  from  office 
that  the  complainant  might  be  benefited. 
Lincoln  once  told  an  interested  denouncer 
of  this  type  to  go  home  and  read  "  Pro- 
verbs xiii.,  10."  On  consulting  the  book 
the  man  found  these  words: 

"  Accuse  not  a  servant  to  his  master, 
lest  he  curse  thee,  and  thou  be  found 
guilty." 

Either  Prince  or  Premier  must  be 
Puppet. 

It  was  a  curious  fact  that  W.  H.  Sew- 
ard  was  proposed  as  candidate  for  the 
Presidency  in  I860,  with  Abraham  Lin- 
coln as  his  Vice-President.  Consequently, 
the  former  had  prepared  himself  for  the 
foremost  position  and,  no  doubt,  it  har- 
monized with  his  disposition,  when  made 
Lincoln's  Secretary  of  State,  to  have  to 
compose,  according  to  tradition,  the 


102  lincolnics 

speeches  to  foreign  ministers  and  even  to 
home  delegations.  He  furnished  such  a 
paper  for  the  reception  of  the  Swiss  Min- 
ister, and  sent  it  by  messenger  to  the 
Chief's  hands,  who  received  it  as  he  was 
chatting  with  some  friends.  He  glanced 
at  the  document,  and,  raising  his  voice  to 
imply  that  here  was  no  state  secret,  said: 

"  Oh,  this  is  a  speech  Mr.  Seward  has 
written  for  me,  eh?  I  guess  I  may  try  it 
before  these  gentlemen,  and  see  how  it 
will  go."  He  read  it  with  that  spirit  of 
burlesque  in  which,  twenty  years  before, 
when  a  Congressman,  he  was  wont  to  re- 
gale the  boarding-house  table  with  a 
parody  of  the  members'  "  speechifying," 
and  concluded:  "  There,  /  like  it!  It  has 
the  merit  of  originality !  " 

(Fortunately,  his  speeches  were  of  his 
own  emanation,  and  not  in  the  character 
of  the  autograph  of  "  John  Phoenix," 
"  which  could  be  relied  on  as  genuine,  as 
it  was  written  for  him  by  one  of  his  most 
intimate  friends !  ") 


Xincolntcs  103 

When  Generals  were  in  Excess. 

At  the  outset  of  the  Civil  War,  military 
titles  and  promotions  were  the  fruit  of  po- 
litical energy.  The  Chief  of  State  mer- 
rily said  that  he  had  made  so  many 
brigadier-generals  for  non-military  pur- 
poses that  you  could  hardly  throw  a  stone 
about  the  capital  without  hitting  one. 
(The  N.  Y.  Mercury  correspondent  cor- 
roborates this  statement  in  his  communi- 
cation to  the  War  Bureau  that  at  any 
hour  a  regiment  could  be  formed  at  Wil- 
lard's  Hotel  bar  composed  entirely  of  of- 
ficers.) 

Sorry  to  Lose  the  Charger. 

A  friend  of  a  brigadier-general  who 
had  been  captured  by  the  enemy,  horse, 
boots,  and  saddle,  was  thus  condoled  with 
by  the  President: 

"  I  am  sorry  about  the  horse." 

"  What  do  you  mean,  sir  ?  " 

"  Only  that  I  can  get  a  brigadier-gen- 


i(H  Xincolnics 

eral  any  day — they  are  more  plentiful 
than  drum-majors — but  those  horses  cost 
the  Government  a  hundred  and  twenty 
dollars  a  head!" 

"  File  It  Away  in  the  Stove."1 

Secretary  of  War  Stanton  was  both 
naturally  and,  by  virtue  of  his  office,  belli- 
cose, and  when  pestered  by  a  swarm  of 
annoyances  his  temper  was  often  carried 
to  a  high  point.  One  day,  he  complained 
to  President  Lincoln  of  a  major-general, 
who  had  accused  him  of  favoritism  in 
grossly  abusive  terms.  His  auditor  ad- 
vised him  to  write  a  sharp  rejoinder. 

"  Prick  him  hard !  "  were  the  words. 

Mr.  Stanton  read  the  draft  surcharged 
by  this  backing,  while  the  hearer  kept 
favorably  commenting: 


1  Readers  of  "  Mark  Twain's  "  writings  during 
the  War,  will  recall  his  expressed  belief  that 
communications  to  Government  officials  at 
Washington  were  "  filed  away  in  the  stove." 
Was  this  a  coincidence  or  a  Lincoln  echo  ? 


Kncclntcs  105 

"Right!  just  it!  score  him  deeply! 
That's  first  rate,  Stanton!" 

But  when  the  gratified  author  began 
folding  up  the  paper  to  fit  into  an  enve- 
lope the  counsellor  interrupted  with: 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  it 
now?" 

The  Secretary  was  about  to  despatch  it, 
of  course. 

"  Nonsense,"  said  the  President,  "  you 
don't  want  to  send  that  letter.  Put  it  in 
the  stove  !  That 's  the  way  I  do  when  I 
have  written  a  letter  while  I  am  mad.  It 
is  a  good  letter,  and  you  Ve  had  a  good 
time  writing  it,  and  feel  better.  Now, 
burn  it,  and  write  again." 

Logic  is  Logic. 

At  a  ball  at  the  White  House,  thieves 
made  off  with  many  of  the  hats  and  over- 
coats of  the  guests,  so  that,  when  ready 
to  take  leave,  Vice-President  Hamliti's 
head  covering  was  not  to  be  found. 

"  I  '11  tell  you  what,   Hamlin,"   said  a 


io6  Xincolnics 

friend ;  "  early  in  the  evening  I  saw  a 
man,  possessed  of  keen  foresight,  hide  hit 
hat  up-stairs.  I  am  sure  he  would  be  will- 
ing to  donate  it  to  the  administration,  and 
I  will  go  and  get  it  for  you." 

When  the  hat  was  produced  it  was 
found  to  be  very  much  after  the  style  af- 
fected by  Hamlin,  but  it  bore  a  badge  of 
mourning,  which  emblem  the  Vice-P resi- 
dent ripped  off  with  his  penknife.  The 
party  stood  chatting  merrily  as  they 
waited  for  the  carriages  to  be  driven  up, 
when  a  man  stepped  directly  in  front  of 
Mr.  Hamlin  and  stood  staring  at  the 
"  tile  "  with  which  his  head  was  covered. 

"  What  are  you  looking  at,  sir  ?  "  asked 
Hamlin  sharply. 

"  Your  hat,"  answered  the  man  mildly. 
"If  it  had  a  weed  on  it,  I  should  say  it 
was  mine." 

"  Well,  it  has  n't  got  a  weed  on  it,  has 
it?  "  asked  the  Vice-President. 

"  No,  sir,"  said  the  hatless  man,  "  it 
hasn't." 


Xincolnfcs  107 

"Then  it  isn't  your  hat,  is  it?"  said 
the  proud  possessor  of  it. 

"  No,  I  guess  not,"  said  the  man  as  he 
turned  to  walk  away.  When  this  little 
scene  was  explained  to  President  Lincoln, 
he  laughed  heartily  and  said: 

"  That  reminds  me,  Hamlin,  of  '  the 
stub-tailed  cow/ 

"  It  was  a  long  time  ago,  when  I  was 
pioneering  and  soldiering  in  Illinois 
[1832],  and  we  put  up  a  joke  on  some 
officers  of  the  United  States  Army.  My 
party  and  I  were  a  long  way  off  from  the 
comforts  of  civilized  life,  and  our  only 
neighbors  were  the  garrison  of  a  United 
States  fort.  We  did  pretty  well  for  ra- 
tions, had  plenty  of  salt  meat  and  flour, 
but  milk  was  not  to  be  had  for  love  or 
money;  and  as  we  all  longed  for  the  deli- 
cacy, we  thought  it  pretty  mean  that  the 
officers  of  the  fort,  who  had  two  cows — -a 
stubbed-tailed  one  and  a  black  and  white 
one — offered  us  no  milk,  though  we  threw 
out  many  and  strong  hints  that  it  would 


io8  Xincolnics 

be  acceptable.  At  last,  after  much  consul- 
tation, we  decided  to  teach  them  a  lesson 
and  to  borrow  or  steal  one  of  those  cows, 
just  as  you  choose  to  put  it.  But  how  it 
could  be  done  without  the  cow  being  at 
once  identified  and  recovered  was  the 
question. 

"  At  last  we  hit  on  a  plan.  One  of  our 
party  was  despatched  a  day's  ride  to  the 
nearest  slaughter-house,  where  he  pro- 
cured a  long  red  cow's  tail  to  match  the 
color  of  the  stub-tailed  cow,  after  possess- 
ing ourselves  of  which  animal  we  neatly 
tied  our  purchase  to  the  poor  stub,  and 
with  appetites  whetted  by  long  abstinence 
we  drank  and  relished  the  sweet  milk 
which  '  our  cow  '  gave.  A  few  days  after- 
ward we  were  honored  by  a  call  from  the 
commander  of  the  fort. 

' '  Say,  boys,'  said  he,  '  we  have  lost  one 
of  our  cows.'  Of  course  we  felt  very  sorry 
and  expressed  our  regret  accordingly. 
'  But,'  continued  the  commander,  '  I  came 
over  to  say  that  if  that  cow  of  yours  had 
a  stub  tail,  I  should  say  it  was  ours/ 


Zincolnics  109 

"  '  But  she  has  n't  a  stub  tail,  has  she?  " 
asked  we,  sure  of  our  point. 

"  '  No/  said  the  officer,  '  she  certainly 
has  not  a  stub  tail.' 

"  *  Well,  she  is  n't  your  cow  then,'  and 
our  argument  was  unanswerable  as  was 
Hamlin." 

Tell  a  Horse's  Points,  not  how  Many 
Hairs  in  his  Tail. 

So  voluminous  a  report  was  made  by  a 
Congressional  committee  upon  a  new  gun 
that  the  President  pathetically  said :  "  I 
should  want  a  new  lease  of  life  to  read 
this  through.  Why  cannot  an  investiga- 
tory committee  occasionally  exhibit  a  grain 
of  common  sense?  If  I  send  a  man  to 
buy  a  horse  for  me,  I  expect  to  have  him 
tell  me  his  points,  and  not  how  many 
hairs  he  has  on  his  tail." 

An  Evasive  Answer. 

A  committee  of  Kentuckians  went  to 
see  Abraham  Lincoln  in  1861,  with  ref- 


no  Xtncoluics 

erence  to  the  abolition  of  slavery.  Many 
Kentuckians  owned  slaves.  They  were 
anxious  to  remain  in  the  Union,  but  they 
did  not  want  to  lose  their  bondmen.  The 
spokesman  of  the  party  was  a  tall  man 
of  about  Lincoln's  height.  He  made  an 
eloquent  speech,  filled  with  fine  sentiments 
and  flowery  metaphor,  and  closed  with 
a  crashing  peroration.  After  he  had  fin- 
ished, Lincoln  looked  at  him  a  moment  and 
then  said  quietly:  "  Judge,  I  believe  your 
legs  are  as  long  as  mine." 

"A  Little  More  Light  and  a  Little 
Less  Noise ! " 

At  the  outset  of  the  war,  when  the  cam- 
paign was  conducted  coincidently  by  the 
chief  newspapers,  a  correspondent  of  a 
New  York  journal  called  to  propose  still 
another  plan  to  the  plan-ridden  Presi- 
dent, who  listened  patiently,  then  said: 

"  Your  New  York  papers  remind  me  of 
a  little  story. 

"  Some  years  ago,  there  was  a  gentle- 


Xfncolnics  m 

man  travelling  through  Kansas  on  horse- 
back. There  were  few  settlements  and 
no  roads,  and  he  lost  his  way.  To  make 
matters  worse,  as  night  came  on,  a  terrific 
thunderstorm  arose,  and  peal  on  peal  of 
thunder,  following  flashes  of  lightning, 
shook  the  earth  or  momentarily  illumi- 
nated the  scene.  The  terrified  traveller 
then  got  off  and  led  his  horse,  seeking  to 
guide  it  as  best  he  might  by  the  flickering 
light  of  the  quick  flashes  of  lightning.  All 
of  a  sudden,  a  tremendous  crash  of  thun- 
der brought  the  man  to  his  knees  in  terror, 
and  he  cried  out: 

"  '  O  Lord !  if  it 's  all  the  same  to  you 
give  us  a  little  more  light  and  a  little  less 
noise!'" 

Take  One  from  Three  and— None 
Remain. 

In  April,  1861,  the  patriot  statesmen 
of  the  North  were  in  a  state  of  anxiety, 
as  the  least  precipitate  act  might  cause 
the  wavering  border  States,  such  as  Ten- 


ii2  Xincolnics 

nessee,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri,  to  throw 
in  their  fortunes  with  the  Carolinas,  Geor- 
gia, Florida,  Mississippi,  and  Arkansas. 
Nevertheless,  a  deputation,  boiling  over 
with  impatience  arising  from  patriotic 
wrath,  urged  the  President  to  do  some- 
thing at  once. 

He  replied  with  apparent  irrelevance: 

"  If  you  fire  at  three  pigeons  on  a  rail, 
and  you  kill  one,  how  many  will  be  left?  " 

There    was    no    delay    in    the    answer: 

"Two!" 

"Oh,  no,"  corrected  he;  "there  would 
be  none  left;  for  the  other  two,  frightened 
by  the  shot,  would  have  flown  away." 

Labor  and  Capital. 

"  I  ask  a  brief  attention.  It  is  to  the 
effort  to  place  capital  on  an  equal  footing 
with,  if  not  above,  labor  in  the  structure 
of  government.  It  is  assumed  that  labor 
is  available  only  in  connection  with  capi- 
tal; that  nobody  labors  unless  somebody 


Xtncolntcs  113 

else  owning  capital  somehow,  by  the  use 
of  it,  induces  him  to  labor.  Labor  is  prior 
to  and  independent  of  capital.  Capital 
is  only  the  fruit  of  labor,  and  could  never 
have  existed  if  labor  had  not  first  existed. 
Labor  is  the  superior  of  capital,  and  de- 
serves much  the  higher  consideration." 
Presidential  Message,  1861. 

How  Long  a  Man's  Legs  Should  Be. 

The  shortest  President  was  William 
H.  Harrison,  and  the  tallest  was  Abraham 
Lincoln.  It  was  not  the  former,  how- 
ever, who  put  the  question  of  how  long  a 
man's  legs  should  be,  but  some  impertinent 
jack-a-dandy  at  a  levee.  The  reply  he 
received  was  as  follows: 

"  A  man's  legs  should  be  long  enough 
to  reach  from  his  body  to  the  ground." 

What  is  Done  for  Others  We 
Think  on  Most  Pleasantly. 

In  the  fall  of  1861,  in  behalf  of  a  young 
Vermont  soldier  condemned  to  death  for 


ii4  Xfncolnfc* 

sleeping  on  post,  Mr.  Chittenden,  a  gov- 
ernment officer,  appealed  first  to  the  Sec- 
retary of  War  and  finally  to  the  President 
for  the  life  of  the  youngster.  One  of  the 
complaints  of  the  martinets  was  that,  on 
account  of  his  merciful  intercessions,  the 
President  was  a  poor  Commander-in-chief. 
In  this  case,  however,  he  promised  to  sus- 
pend the  execution  and  to  act  personally. 

Mr.  Chittenden  demurred  at  imposing 
another  burden  on  an  over-burdened  man. 

"  Never  mind,"  said  Lincoln.  "  Scott's 
life  is  as  valuable  to  him  as  that  of  any 
person  in  the  land.  You  remember  the 
remark  of  the  Scotchman  about  the  head 
of  a  nobleman  who  was  beheaded: 

" '  It  was  no  great  head,  but  it  was 
the  only  one  he  had/  MI 

The  Vermonter  was  released  and  won 


1  In  the  original  story  it  is  a  Scotchwoman  in 
the  Highlands  lamenting  the  decapitation  of 
her  laird.  "  It  waur  na  mitch  o'  a  head, 
but,  puir  body!  it  waur  a1  the  head  the  laird 
had.'1 


Xincolntca  115 

promotion  in  his  regiment,  but  he  refused 
it.  He  died  as  a  private,  in  action  at 
Lee's  Mills.  With  his  latest  breath  he 
thanked  the  President  who  had  allowed 
him  to  fall  like  a  soldier.  Of  this  valiant 
end  Mr.  Chittenden  acquainted  the  bene- 
factor, saying: 

"  I  wish  this  matter  could  be  written 
into  history." 

"  None  of  that,"  broke  in  Lincoln. 
"  You  remember  what  Jeanie  Deans  said 
to  the  English  Queen  when  begging  for 
her  sister's  life:1 

' '  It  is  not  when  we  sleep  saft  and 
wake  merrily  that  we  think  o*  ither  peo- 
ple's sufferings;  but  when  the  hour  of 
trouble  comes,  and  when  the  hour  of  death 
comes — that  comes  to  high  and  low — oh, 
then,  it  is  n't  what  we  have  done  for  our- 
sel's,  but  what  we  have  done  for  ither* 
that  we  think  on  most  pleasantly/  " 


1  The  Heart  of  Midlothian,  by  Sir    Walter 
Scott. 


ix6  Xincolntcs 

"No  Blood  on  My  Skirts." 

One  of  the  many  stories  showing  the 
President's  tenderness  towards  the  class 
from  which  he  had  sprung  is  related  by 
Mr.  Thayer,  who  got  it  straight  from  a 
personal  friend  of  Lincoln.  The  narrator 
had  taken  in  hand  the  deliverance  of  a 
soldier,  doomed  to  death  for  falling  asleep 
on  "  sentry-go."  Lincoln  wrote  the  par- 
don, and  remarked: 

"  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  a  boy 
raised  on  a  farm,  probably  in  the  habit 
of  going  to  bed  at  dusk,  should,  when  re- 
quired to  watch  all  night,  fall  asleep.  I 
cannot  consent  to  shoot  him  for  such  an 
act.  I  could  not  think  of  going  into 
eternity  with  that  poor  young  man's  blood 
on  my  skirts." 

The  soldier  was  killed  at  Fredericks- 
burg;  and  on  his  bosom  was  found  a 
photograph  of  Lincoln  with  the  legend: 
"God  bless  President  Lincoln!" 


Kncolnlcs  "7 

It  Does  Not  Hurt  Me  and  Pleases 
Her. 

In  October,  1861,  General  Phelps,  in 
taking  possession  of  Ship  Island,  near 
New  Orleans,  issued  a  proclamation  man- 
umitting the  slaves.1  At  this  time,  the 
President,  while  devoted  to  general  free- 
dom, was  not  committed  to  the  wholesale 
liberation.  Yet  he  took  no  official  notice 
of  the  premature  act.  The  matter  being 
brought  insistently  before  him,  he  finally 
re  j  oined : 

"  I  feel  about  that  a  good  deal  as  a 
man — whom  I  will  call  Jones — did  about 
his  wife.  He  was  one  of  those  meek  men 
and  had  the  reputaton  of  being  '  hen- 
pecked.' At  last,  one  day,  his  wife  was 

1  When,  later,  General  Fremont,  command- 
ing our  army  in  the  West,  did  a  similar  act, 
the  President  curbed  him,  stating  that  the 
Emancipation  would  be  performed  in  due 
course,  but  by  his  own  initiative.  It  was  clear 
that  not  a  few  who  aimed  at  the  Presidential 
chair  itched  to  hurl  this  thunderbolt. 


n8  Xincolnics 

seen  switching  him  out  of  the  house.  A 
day  or  two  afterwards,  a  friend  met  him 
on  the  street  and  said: 

' '  Jones,  I  've  always  stood  up  for  you, 
as  you  know,  but  I  am  not  going  to  do 
it  any  longer.  Any  man  who  will  stand 
quietly  and  take  a  switching  from  his  wife 
deserves  to  be  horsewhipped/ 

' '  Now,  don't,'  replies  Jones,  looking 
up  with  a  wink  and  patting  him  on  the 
back.  '  Why,  it  did  n't  hurt  me  any,  and 
you  have  no  idea  what  a  power  of  good 
it  did  Mary  Ann/  "* 

Stanton  Murdered  Sleep ! 

Contrary  to  the  expectation  of  the  "  in- 
telligent foreigner "  who  pried  into  our 
affairs  when  we  were  having  our  spring 
cleaning  of  traitors  and  the  like  parasites, 
it  was  not  the  Upstart  from  the  West  who 


1  The  original  story  is  told  of  an  English 
"navvv,"  lusty  and  amply  able  to  endure, 
whose  wife  was  by  comparison  frail  and  feeble. 


Xfncolnics  119 

was  the  "  Sir  Anthony  Absolute  "  of  the 
capital,  but  Stanton,  the  Secretary  of 
War.  He  was  not  always  losing  his  tem- 
per, as  he  had  never  found  it  from  the 
first  slip  immediately  after  swearing  him- 
self into  office.  He  was  the  bogey  of  the 
swarm  of  political  beggars,  and  a  predes- 
tined buffer — not  to  say  chevaux-de-frise 
— for  the  badgered  President.  "  Go  to 
Stanton  "  was  in  the  latter's  mouth  what 
"  Get  thee  into  the  Bastille !  "  was  to  King 
Louis  XIV.  of  France.  Lincoln  said  he 
got  no  rest  between  Stanton  and  the  pest- 
erers.  "  No  government  could  sleep 
soundly  while  such  a  man  as  Secretary 
Stanton  was  stamping  about  in  the  corri- 
dors kicking  chairs  over  and  snapping 
bell  cords."  It  was  asserted  that  the  im- 
perious Anthony  ruled  the  Caesar;  but 
the  former's  private  secretary,  who  often- 
est  saw  the  two  dignitaries  together,  totally 
denies  this  statement.  At  all  events  the 
superior  had  a  high  opinion  of  his 
lieutenant. 


lao  Xtncolnfca 

If  Stanton  Said  So,  It  Must 
Be  Sol 

A  Western  committee  was  referred  to 
Secretary  Stanton;  he  jeered  at  their 
scheme  to  transfer  Western  and  Eastern 
troops  for  one  another,  and  on  hearing 
that  the  committee  had  the  President's  ap- 
proval clinched  his  reply  by  averring  dis- 
respectfully : 

"  Then  he  is  a  dead-sure  fool!  " 

This  was  repeated  to  the  President,  who 
pondered  a  while  and  then,  looking  up, 
merely  said : 

"If  Stanton  said  I  was  a  dead-sure  fool, 
then  I  must  be  one,  for  Stanton  is  nearly 
always  right  and  generally  says  what  he 
means." 

But,  in  the  interest  of  peace,  he  never- 
theless threw  a  sop  to  Cerberus,  probably 
such  a  good  story  that  even  the  Crying 
Philosopher  would  have  laughed  over  it. 

Told  by  Mr.  G.  W.  Julian. 


Xtncolnics  121 

"  Keep  Silent,  and  We  Will  Get  You 
Safe  Across." 

In  the  sixties,  one  of  the  most-talked- 
about  of  men  was  the  French  rope-walker, 
Blondin,  who  crossed  Niagara  Falls  on 
a  rope,  often  carrying  a  man  on  his  back. 
On  being  asked  why  the  living  burden 
kept  so  absolutely  immovable,  he  grimly 
replied:  "  I  tell  him  if  he  move,  and  it  is 
life  or  death  for  one  or  both,  I  shall 
drop  him !  So  he  cling  tight !  " 

From  the  beginning  of  his  occupation 
of  the  White  House,  Lincoln  kept  up  the 
democratic  tradition  of  "  open  house." 
Then  began  the  endless  stream  of  clients, 
which  often  angered  the  ushers  and  em- 
barrassed the  chief.  On  one  occasion,  af- 
ter having  listened  with  his  unalterable 
patience  to  a  delegation,  the  President 
said: 

"  That  reminds  me  of  Blondin  the  acro- 
bat. Gentlemen,  suppose  all  the  property 
you  were  worth  was  in  gold,  and  you  had 


122  Xincolnics 

put  it  on  the  back  of  Blondin  to  carry 
across  the  Niagara  River  on  a  rope,  would 
you  shake  the  cable,  or  keep  shouting  to 
him: 

Blondin,  stand  up  a  little  straighter ! 
stoop  a  little  more!  lean  a  little  more  to 
the  north !  lean  a  little  more  to  the  south  '  ? 
"  No,  you  would  hold  your  breath  as 
well  as  your  tongue,  and  keep  your  hands 
off  until  he  was  safe  over.  The  Govern- 
ment is  carrying  an  immense  weight. 
Untold  treasures  are  in  their  hands.  They 
are  doing  the  best  they  can.  Don't  badger 
them.  Keep  silent,  and  we  will  get  you 
safe  across." 

Name  the   Brand  of  Whiskey  and 
I  '11  Send  Some  to  All  my  Generals. 

The  actual  course  of  events  quite  over- 
came the  old  wise  saws  in  Washington 
when,  like  the  capital  of  Judea,  "  the  ene- 
mies had  cast  a  trench  about  it,  and  com- 
passed it  round  and  kept  it  in 
on  every  side/'  while,  likewise,  threaten- 


Xmcolnics  125 

ing  "to  lay  it  even  with  the  ground." 
Fault-finders  and  counsellors  alike  seemed 
as  futile  as  the  soldier-chiefs.  Even 
when  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Pittsburg 
Landing  arrived,  betokening  a  new  light 
in  the  West,  the  cavillers  still  carped  at 
"  our  only  general,"  and  belittled  Grant 
by  asserting  that  his  spirit  was  due  to  be- 
ing fortified  by  whiskey.  His  chief  sup- 
port, they  had  no  hesitancy  in  declaring, 
was  "  leaning  on  the  whiskey  cask." 

To  a  deputation  of  Prohibitionists,  our 
"  First  Consul  "  blandly  replied  with  af- 
fected eagerness: 

"  Gentlemen,  if  you  can  name  the  par- 
ticular brand  of  whiskey  General  Grant 
uses  I  shall  thank  you,  for  I  just  want  to 
send  a  barrel  to  every  one  of  my  other 
generals  a-field." 

Did  His  Work  Well,  but  Always 
Squealed. 

Secretary  Stanton  laid  before  the  Presi- 
dent some  papers  which  appeared  to  show 


i24  Xincolnfcd 

that  a  certain  Northern  war  governor, 
while  zealously  supporting  the  cause  and 
furthering  it  from  his  State's  means  and 
men,  liked  to  do  things  in  his  own  way. 
Thwarted  in  this,  he  was  apt  to  impede 
movements  which  the  chief  military  office 
intended  to  direct  wholly. 

The  Executive  read  the  documents,  but 
did  not  share  Mr.  Stanton's  apprehensions. 
On  the  contrary  he  smiled  in  his  meaning 
way,  and  proceeded  to  say  in  his  gentle, 
humorous  voice: 

"  Your  Governor  reminds  me  of  a  boy 
whom  I  once  saw  at  a  launching.  When 
a  ship  is  ready  to  be  launched,  you  know, 
the  keel  hangs  on  but  by  one  point,  where 
a  '  dog '  is  to  be  knocked  away.  This  was 
only  a  small  concern,  and,  instead  of  a 
giant  with  a  maul,  a  small  boy  was  regu- 
larly employed  to  remove  the  shore.  All 
he  had  to  do  was  strike  one  smart  blow, 
and  lie  right  down  in  the  hollow  of  the 
ways,  whereupon  the  hull  would  slide 
clean  over  him  in  an  instant.  But  the 


Xmcolnfcs  125 

boy  must  needs  begin  to  '  holler  '  as  soon 
as  the  mass  glided  over  him,  and  you 
would  think  by  the  yelling  he  was  being 
murdered  all  the  time  of  the  passage.  I 
myself  thought  the  hide  was  being  scraped 
from  his  back;  but  he  was  not  hurt  at 
all. 

"  The  shipwright-boss  told  me  that  this 
lad  was  always  chosen  for  the  job,  being 
'  peart '  and  spry,  that  he  did  his  feat  well, 
never  had  been  grazed  even,  but  that  he 
always  hollered  in  that  way. 

"  Now,  that 's  the  way  with  our  Gov- 
ernor Blank.  He  will  do  his  work  right 
enough,  but  he  must  squeal!  We  get  good 
work ;  so  let  him  do  his  squealing !  " 

Tackle  One  of  Your  Own  Size  . 

P.  T.  Barnum,  the  showman,  endeavored 
to  repeat  the  success  he  had  met  with  all 
over  the  world  in  his  exhibition  of  "  Gen- 
eral Tom  Thumb  "  by  presenting  another 
dwarf, "  Commodore  "  Nutt.  In  1862  they 


126  Xincolnicd 

were  at  Washington,  and  in  accordance 
with  his  usual  method,  in  order  to  obtain 
a,  good  advertisement  from  our  uncrowned 
head,  Barnum  "  engineered  "  it  so  that  he 
should  be  invited  to  the  White  House  with 
his  celebrity.  The  Cabinet  were  assem- 
bled and  the  President  introduced  the  Lil- 
liputian to  them.  The  manager  relates: 

"After  a  little  joking  Mr.  Lincoln  bent 
down  his  long,  lank  body,  and  taking 
Nutt  by  the  hand  said: 

' '  Commodore,  permit  me  to  give  you  a 
parting  word  of  advice.  When  you  are 
in  command  of  your  fleet,  if  you  find 
yourself  in  danger  of  being  taken  pris- 
oner, I  advise  you  to  wad e  ashore ! ' 

"  The  commodore  let  his  gaze  travel  up 
the  whole  length  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  ex- 
tremely long  legs,  and  replied,  quietly: 

" '  I  guess,  Mr.  President,  you  could 
do  that  better  than  I  could ! '  " 

"  Butler  or  No  Butler,  Here  Goes ! " 

Early   in   1862,  before  General   Butler 


Xtncolnicd  127 

had  entire  sway  at  New  Orleans,  and  was 
yet  acquiring  repute  for  inflexibility  and 
independence,  a  soldier  under  his  flag 
was  condemned  to  death.  The  circum- 
stances were  such  that  his  Congressman 
would  not  undertake  the  cause,  and  the 
Secretary  of  War,  because  of  his  severity, 
was  deemed  hopeless  of  approach  by 
the  grieving  father  who  had  hastened  to 
the  capital  to  endeavor  to  save  his  boy. 
In  this  dilemma,  a  passing  sympathizer 
brought  him  into  the  Presidential  pres- 
ence, where  he  pleaded  for  his  son's  life. 
Unfortunately,  the  President  had  lately 
rectived  a  somewhat  impertinent  letter 
from  General  Butler,  praying  him  not  to 
interfere  in  cases  of  discipline,  as  it  un- 
dermined the  morale  of  the  army.  The 
announcement  of  this  fact  completed  the 
mourner's  distress,  and  his  cry  of  anguish 
was  so  poignant  that  the  President 
snatched  up  his  pen  and,  with  the  in- 
genuity of  a  benevolent  Machiavelli, 
wrote : 


i28  Xmcolnlcs 

"J.  S.  is  not  to  be  shot  until  further 
orders  from  me." 

"  Butler  or  no  Butler,  here  goes !  "  he 
added. 

Through  his  streaming  tears  the  trem- 
bling father  could  hardly  read  the  precious 
lines,  but  then  was  aghast  to  find  that  he 
had  not  received  a  pardon. 

Lincoln  smiled  at  his  fears  and  said: 

"  I  see  you  are  not  acquainted  with 
me,  old  friend.  If  your  son  never  looks 
on  death  till  further  orders  from  me  to 
shoot  him,  he  will  live  to  be  a  great  deal 
older  than  old  Methuselah ! " 

Such  instances  of  his  mercy,  and  of  his 
belief  that  "  shooting  did  no  good  to  any 
man,"  were  numerous. 

No  Going  behind  a  Good  Point. 

Congressman  Kellogg  came  before 
President  Lincoln  on  behalf  of  the  son 
of  a  constituent.  The  young  man,  after 
gallantry  as  a  soldier,  had  fallen  under 


lincolnfcs  129 

condemnation.  Extenuating  circumstances 
also  pleaded  for  him,  but  the  hearer  was 
most  touched  by  the  record  of  his  being 
wounded  under  the  flag. 

"  Kellogg,  is  there  not  something  in 
the  Bible  about  the  shedding  of  blood  re- 
mitting sins  ?  " 

The  suitor  assented. 

"  Well,  that  is  a  good  point,  and  there  's 
no  going  behind  it !  "  returned  the  arbi- 
ter, filling  up  and  signing  a  pardon. 

It  was  more  evidence  in  favor  of  his 
truism  that  the  burden  of  the  war  fell 
"  most  heavily  on  the  soldier." 

"  How  many  Legs  Will  a  Sheep 
Have?" 

President  Lincoln  replied  to  a  depu- 
tation, one  of  many  urging  immediate 
slave-emancipation  when  the  proposition 
was  not  yet  framed  as  a  bill: 

"  If  I  issue  a  proclamation  now,  as  you 

9 


130  Xincolnfcs 

suggest,  it  will  be  as  ineffectual  as  the 
Pope's  bull  against  the  comet.  It  can- 
not be  forced.  Now,  by  way  of  illustra- 
tion,— how  many  legs  will  a  sheep  have 
if  you  call  his  tail  a  leg?  " 

They  all  answered:  "Five." 

"  You  are  mistaken,  for  calling  a  tail 
a  leg  does  not  make  it  so." 


"Prayer  and  Praise  Go  Together." 

In  1862,  in  the  spring,  the  President 
suffered  family  bereavement  and  distress 
together  with  heart-rending  news  from 
the  battle  front,  where  the  Union  reverses 
were  repeated.  But  at  the  very  time 
when  one  son  of  Lincoln  was  laid  to  rest, 
and  another  was  menaced  with  the  same 
fate,  the  fall  of  Fort  Donelson  was  re- 
ported. In  his  affliction,  the  father  had 
been  supported  by  a  pious  nurse  who  en- 
joined prayer  upon  him. 


lincolnicd  13 1 

"  There  is  nothing  like  prayer,"  she 
persisted. 

Beaming  with  the  unexpected  good 
news,  he  replied: 

"  Yes,  there  is :  praise !  Prayer  and 
praise  must  go  together." 

If  I  Were  So  Skeered  I  Should  Go 
Home! 

In  March,  1862,  the  Merrimac,  the  first 
ironclad  known,  attacked  and  destroyed 
half  of  the  U.  S.  Navy  at  Newport  News.1 
The  alarm  among  the  monetary  and  mer- 
cantile classes  was  at  first  paralyzing, 


1  Early  in  1862,  there  were  rumors  that  a 
colossal  engine  of  naval  destruction  was  on  the 
ways  at  Newport  News ;  but  though  it  was 
generally  believed  probable  that  the  invention 
of  a  novelty  in  maritime  warfare  was  quite 
possible  by  an  intelligent  people  like  our  South- 
ern brothers,  the  Government  must  have  been 
misled  either  by  want  of ,  or  by  false  information, 
and  the  rumor  was  mocked  at  in  official  circles. 
The  Merrimnc  was  not  onlv  a  floating  battery 
but  had  a  ramming  prow  like  those  of  ancient 


i3»  Xtncolnics 

but  as  soon  as  there  was  a  revival  of 
spirit,  though  not  of  courage,  a  deputation 
of  New  York  financiers  and  merchants, 
representing  untold  wealth,  hurried  to  the 
seat  of  government  to  demand  of  the 
Chief  protection  for  the  coast  cities;  the 
Merrimac  was  considered  to  be  seaworthy. 
"  Gentlemen,"  said  Lincoln,  after  re- 
garding them  and  noting  the  evidences  of 
rapid  travel,  their  dismay  at  being  near 
the  battle-fields,  and  their  expression  of 
utter  helplessness,  "  the  Government  has 
got  no  ship  that  I  know  of  that  can  meet 
the  Merrimac.  [The  Monitor  was  then 

galleys.  On  Saturday,  the  8th  of  March,  1862, 
this  unknown  construction  revealed  herself  to 
the  eyes  of  the  Federal  sentinels  at  Fortress 
Monroe,  and  the  lookouts  on  the  men-of-war 
under  it  saw  "  The  Horror  of  the  War"  which 
was  contrary  to  all  ideas  of  naval  craft.  It  was 
a  low-lying  hulk,  covered  with  railroad  iron  so 
as  to  be  bomb-proof  and  as  stated,  supplied  with 
a  beak  to  pierce,  and  by  the  immense  weight 
behind  it  to  crush  in  any  obstacle  encountered 
when  under  full  speed.  The  ironclad  steadily 
charged  the  blockading  squadron,  singling  out 


Xtncolnics  133 

an  unknown  quantity.]  There  is  no  money 
in  the  treasury,  and  our  credit  is  none  of 
the  best.  I  don't  know  anything  that  we 
can  do,  but  if  I  had  as  much  money  as 
you  say  you  have,  and  I  was  as  skeered 
as  you  are,  I  'd  go  home  and  protect  my 
own  property." 

Another  version  reads :  "  I  'd  go  home, 
build  some  war  vessels,  and  present  them 
to  the  Government."  Old  Commodore 
Vanderbilt  had  set  the  example  by  giving 
an  ocean  steamship. 

the  Cumberland,  as  most  worthy  of  her  prowess. 
She  stood  the  frigate's  broadsides  without  the 
least  injury  and  rammed  and  sank  the  vessel 
in  less  than  an  hour.  The  Congress  also  struck 
her  colors  to  the  monster,  and  then  the  victor 
slowly  retired.  Consternation  was  left  in 
her  wake  for  nothing  seemed  able  to  beat 
off  this  new  engine  of  war.  The  next  day, 
however  she  was  faced  with  another  and 
more  novel  machine  for  ocean  action,  the 
Monitor. 

While  the  rumors  in  regard  to  the  formidable 
nature  of  the  rebel  ram  Merrimac,  were  flying 
about,  counter  tales  were  circulated  in  New 


i34  JLlncolnfcs 

He  Furnished  the  Stone  for  the 
Sling. 

Engineer  Ericsson's  plan  for  that  nov- 
elty in  naval  warfare,  the  Monitor,  was  at 
first  rejected  by  the  Naval  Board,  but 
was  upheld  by  President  Lincoln,  who 
maintained,  against  the  opinion  of  the 
consulting  engineers  that  the  weight  of 
armor  was  a  matter  of  calculation.  "  On 
the  Mississippi  we  used  to  figure  to  a 
pound  what  our  flatboats  and  steamboats 
could  carry."  (He  had  built  the  former 
class  with  his  own  hands.) 

When  the  dread  Merrimac,  rebel  iron- 
clad ram,  was  understood  to  be  about  to 

York  about  another  strange  vessel,  built  by 
Ericsson,  the  Monitor, which  was  hurried  to  the 
scene  of  action.  The  Merrimac  came  forth  on 
Sunday  morning  to  renew  her  terrible  de- 
struction, and  a  duel  ensued  between  the  two 
champions.  The  little  "cheese-box  on  a  plank," 
the  invention  of  the  famous  Swede,  with  two 
guns  only  in  the  turret,  bore  the  ponderous 
broadsides  with  immunity  and  finally  forced  a 
retreat.  The  insignificant  stickle-back  had 


lincolnicd  135 

issue  from  port,  at  Newport  News,  on 
the  offensive,  and  the  Monitor  was  not  yet 
reported,  though  at  sea,  the  President 
alone  had  faith  in  the  latter. 

"  I  believed  in  the  Monitor  when  her 
designs  were  first  shown  me.  I  caught 
some  of  the  inventor's  enthusiasm.  I 
think  she  may  be  the  veritable  sling  with 
the  stone  to  smite  this  Philistine  Merrimac 
in  the  forehead." 

The  Confederate  terror  emerged,  in- 
flicted vast  damage  on  the  Federal  fleet, 
and  retired  for  a  renewal  of  the  struggle, 
or  rather  for  further  devastation.  In  the 
meantime  the  Monitor  arrived,  threw  her- 
self between  ram  and  butt,  and  drove  her 
giant  adversary  back  into  covert. 
"  Throw  but  a  stone — the  monster  dies !  " 

conquered  the  hippopotamus.  The  Confederate 
champion  was  disabled  and  had  to  be  towed 
into  Norfolk.  From  that  day  on,  the  type  of  the 
Monitor,  with  certain  modifications,  prevailed  in 
naval  construction.  She  was  like  the  Circas- 
sion  in  his  chain  mail  compared  to  the  Crusader 
in  massive  plate  armor. 


136  Xincoimc* 

The  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
acknowledged  the  inestimable  debt  to  the 
inventor,  Ericsson,  and  added  that  the 
credit  for  the  actual  construction  of  the 
terror-destroyer  was  entirely  due  to 
President  Lincoln. 

Take  to  the  Woods ! 

The  Spanish  difficulty,  which  has  popped 
up  ever  since  there  was  an  Expansion 
movement,  arose  during  the  War.  Santo 
Domingo  was  then  at  daggers  drawn  and 
fleshed  with  Old  Spain;  and  the  Cabinet 
held  a  consultation  upon  the  point  whether 
we  should  aid  the  monarchy  and,  in  a 
way,  suppress  the  filibustering  actions,  or 
openly  espouse  the  cause  of  colonial  free- 
dom. "  Cuba  free "  was  talked  about, 
but  even  such  expeditions  as  that  of  Lopez, 
which  involved  some  of  our  daring  citi- 
zens, had  not  implicated  the  Government. 
The  Abolitionists,  of  course,  sympathized 
with  the  revolted  colony.  The  President 
was  supposed  to  owe  a  great  deal  of  his 


support  to  this  class.  Appealed  to,  he 
said: 

"  That  reminds  me  of  the  negro  at  the 
camp-meeting.  The  preacher  was,  in  his 
excitement,  rather  confused  in  his  quota- 
tions. He  cited  the  text  as  offering  the 
two  roads,  saying:  '  Dar  are  two  roads 
afore  ye,  brethren:  de  narrer  road,  which 
leadeth  to  destruction;  and  de  broad  road, 
which  leadeth  right  on  to  damnation ! ' 
'  In  dat  case  '  responded  a  hearer,  rising 
to  suit  the  action  to  the  word,  '  dis  chile 
takes  to  de  woods ! ' ' 

Hayti  was  recognized  as  an  indepen- 
dent power,  April,  1862,  as  had  been  done 
by  Europe.  The  President  advocated 
strict  neutrality. 

"Ain't  We  Glad  to  Git  Out  of  the 
Wilderness!" 

(Popular    negro     minstrel     song    of    the 

time.) 

In  June,  1862,  the  daring  cavalry  raid 
by  Colonel  Stuart,  around  the  Union  army 


138  Xincolnic0 

of  McClellan,  bringing  Mars  to  the  six- 
mile  limit,  threw  the  inhabitants  of  Wash- 
ington into  consternation.  To  a  person  of 
consequence  who  made  anxious  inquiries 
of  the  Chief,  the  latter  replied  with  ap- 
prehension rarely  shown  by  him: 

"  There  is  no  news  from  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac.  I  do  not  know  whether  we 
have  any  army !  " 

The  interlocutor  said  fervently: 

"If  we  do  right,  I  believe  that  God 
will  lead  us  safely  out  of  the  Wilderness," 
— the  usual  designation  of  the  brush  tan- 
gle about  the  Potomac  River  Valley. 

"  My  faith  is  greater  than  yours,"  re- 
joined Lincoln;  "I,  too,  believe  that  if 
we  do  right  God  will  lead  us  safely  out 
of  the  Wilderness.  I  hope  that  a  bright 
morning  will  follow  this  dark  hour  that 
now  fills  us  with  alarm.  Indeed,  my  faith 
tells  me  it  will  be  so."  (The  battle  of 
Malvern  Hill  soon  verified  this  faith.) 

Recounted  by  ex-Senator  Jas.  F.  Wil- 
son. 


Xtncolnfcs  139 

"Be  on  the  Lord's  Side." 

A  member  of  the  church,  being  at  a 
Presidential  reception,  closed  some  re- 
marks with  the  pious  hope  that  the  Lord 
would  be  "  on  our  side." 

"  I  am  not  at  all  concerned  about  that," 
commented  the  President,  "  for  we  know 
that  the  Lord  is  always  on  the  side  of 
the  right.  But  it  is  my  constant  anxiety 
and  prayer  that  I  and  this  nation  should 
be  on  the  Lord's  side." 

Another  Evasive  Answer. 

In  the  darkest  hours  of  the  Virginia 
campaign,  July,  1862,  a  New  York  Dem- 
ocratic M.  C.,  John  Gannon,  of  Buffalo, 
who  had  supported  the  Republican  Chief 
through  thick  and  thin,  deemed  himself 
therefore  privileged  beyond  all  other  in- 
quisitors to  receive  intelligence  of  the 
movements  of  the  army.  The  military 
situation  was  so  critical  that  it  was  im- 
possible for  an  outsider  to  be  given  any 


MO  Xincolnics 

information.  The  President  looked  -at 
Gannon  a  moment,  and  then,  his  eye 
catching  the  glint  of  the  lustrous  ivory 
front  of  the  Congressman,  whose  face  and 
forehead  were  as  clean  as  a  Chinaman's, 
returned : 

"  Gannon,  how  clean  you  shave !  " 

"A  Private  Has  as  Much   Right  to 
Justice  as  a  Major-General." 

Senator  J.  F.  Wilson,  in  pleading  the 
case  of  a  soldier  wrongfully  accused  of 
desertion,  met  with  the  cordial  approba- 
tion of  President  Lincoln,  but  found  the 
Secretary  of  War  inexorable.  The  un- 
flagging advocate  re-appealed  "  to  Cae- 
sar "  and  procured  an  over-riding  order 
which  the  Secretary,  after  another  pro- 
test, finally  obeyed.  On  reporting  the 
sequel  to  the  Chief,  the  latter  said: 

"  Well,  I  am  glad  you  stuck  to  it, 
and  that  it  ended  as  it  did;  for  I  meant 
it  should  so  end  if  I  had  to  give  it  per- 
sonal attention.  A  private  soldier  has  as 


Xtncolnfcs  141 

much     right     to     justice     as     a     major- 
general." 

True  Intellectual  Economy. 

"  I  never  let  any  idea  escape  me,  but 
write  it  on  a  scrap  of  paper,  and  put  it 
in  a  drawer.  In  that  way  I  save  my  best 
thoughts  on  a  subj  ect,  and  such  things 
often  come  in  a  kind  of  intuitive  way  more 
clearly  than  if  one  were  to  sit  down  and 
deliberately  reason  them  out.  To  save 
the  results  of  such  mental  action  is  true 
intellectual  economy.  It  not  only  saves 
time  and  labor,  but  also  the  very  best  ma- 
terial the  mind  can  supply  for  unexpected 
emergencies."1 

Lincoln   to   Senator  Wilson,    1862. 


1  An  unconscious  echo  of  this  helpful  hint  to 
the  art  of  composition  is  met  witli  in  Henri 
Miirger,  author  of  La  Vie  en  Botutme.  The 
French  author  also  impressed  on  his  brothers 
of  the  pen  the  wisdom  of  keeping  a  common- 
place book,  as  the  time  would  come  when  its 
reservoir  of  ideas  "written  out"  would  be 
invaluable  to  the  man  of  letters.  So,  "great 
wits  jump." 


142  Xincolnics 

Cheering  Not  Military. 

After  the  reverses  of  Bull  Run,  Aug.  2, 
1862,  the  President  went  out  to  visit  and 
encourage  the  soldiers.  As  he  was  about 
to  review  the  command  under  Colonel 
(afterwards  General)  Sherman,  the  latter 
asked  for  a  speech,  but,  in  kindness  to 
the  civilian's  ignorance,  remarked  that 
cheering  was  not  military  and  that  he 
hoped  the  orator  would  not  draw  out  any 
boisterousness.  The  forces  were  raw  re- 
cruits and  were  profoundly  demoralized 
at  the  moment  by  a  repulse,  the  vibration 
of  which  extended  to  Maine.  According 
to  Sherman,  the  speaker  made  "  one  of 
the  neatest,  best,  and  most  feeling  ad- 
dresses ever  listened  to."  The  hearers 
were  strongly  inclined  to  cheer,  but  the 
President  checked  them  with  the  dry,  droll 
remark : 

"  Don't  cheer,  boys !  I  confess  that  I 
rather  like  it  myself,  but  Colonel  Sherman 
here  says  it  is  n't  military ;  and  I  guess 
we  hod  better  defer  to  hit  opinion." 


Ifncolnics  143 

"  Old  Inflexible  "  Foreseen. 

During  the  lax  discipline  at  the  outset 
of  the  war,  a  soldier  ventured,  in  his  su- 
perior's presence,  to  break  ranks  at  a  re- 
view and  go  up  to  the  President  and  blurt 
out: 

"  Mr.  President,  I  have  a  cause  for 
grievance.  I  went  to  speak  to  Colonel 
Sherman,  and  he  threatened  to  shoot  me." 

Repeating  the  charge,  the  hearer  looked 
from  the  denunciator  to  the  Colonel;  then, 
bending  his  tall  form  towards  the  soldier, 
said  in  his  thin,  piping  vjoice,  which,  how- 
ever, always  "  carried  well,"  so  that  the 
regiment  overhead:  "Well,  if  I  were  you, 
and  Colonel  Sherman  had  threatened  to 
shoot  me,  I  would  n't  trust  him !  for  I 
believe  he  would  do  it !  " 

Save  the  Union ! 

"  My  paramount  obj  ect  in  this  struggle 
is  to  save  the  Union." 

Rejoinder  to  Horace  Greeley,  Aug., 
1862.  On  base  of  the  Lincoln 
statue,  Chicago. 


144  Xtncolnics 

"  My  Hope  of  Success  Is  in  God's 
Justice  and  Goodness." 

"  My  hope  of  success,  in  this  great  and 
terrible  struggle,  rests  on  that  immovable 
foundation,  the  justice  and  goodness  of 
God.  And  when  events  are  very  threat- 
ening, and  prospects  very  dark,  I  still 
hope  that  all  will  be  well  in  the  end,  be- 
cause our  cause  is  just  and  God  is  on 
our  side." 

To  a  deputation  of  clergy;  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Gurley,  present,  the  relater. 

The  Quiet  Past  Versus  the  Stormy 
Present. 

"  The  dogmas  of  the  quiet  past  are  in- 
adequate to  the  stormy  present." 

Presidential    Message,    Sept.,    1862. 

"The  Union  First  and  Foremost — 

Slavery  Afterwards." 
In  Lincoln's  letter  to  Horace  Greeley, 
August  22,  1862,  occurs  the  above  passage 
demonstrating    that    the    word    had    dis- 
placed the  purse. 


Xfncolnicd  145 

"  Freedom  Is  the  Last,  Best  Hope  of 

Earth ! " 
Presidential   Message,    Sept.,    1862. 

"Who  Would  Be  Free,  Themselves 
Must  Strike ! " 

"  Disenthrall  ourselves,  and  then  we 
shall  save  ourselves." 

Presidential   Message,    Sept.,    1862. 

"We  Cannot  Escape  History." 
Presidential  Message,   Sept.,   1862. 

The  Butcher's  Bill. 

"  It  is  much,  very  much,  that  this  would 
cost  no  blood  at  all." 

Message  recommending  the  adoption  of 
the  resolutions  concerning  amnesty, 
of  the  united  Houses,  1862. 

"  To  Have  Good  Soldiers,  Treat 

Them   Rightly." 
Said  to  Senator  Jas.  F.  Wilson,  1862. 


146  Xtncolntcs 

A  Rule  Without  Exception. 

"  When  a  man  is  sincerely  penitent  for 
his  misdeeds,  and  gives  satisfactory  evi- 
dence of  the  same,  he  can  safely  be  par- 
doned, and  there  is  no  exception  to  the 
rule/* 

Lincoln,  as  to  his  Amnesty  Act. 

What  Use  Is  a  Second  Term  to  a 

Man  Without  a  Country  ? 
If  there  was  any  pang  comparable  to 
that  experienced  by  President  Lincoln 
when  he  suspended  the  Habeas  Corpus 
Act  it  must  have  been  when  he  con- 
sented to  the  Draft  Act  and  imitated  des- 
potic rulers,  in  tearing  the  hopes  and 
the  props  of  the  home  from  the  roof-tree. 
But  he  did  not  flinch  and  when  the  new 
military  chief,  General  Grant,  asked  for 
three  hundred  thousand  men  to  "  fight  it 
out  on  that  line  though  it  took  all  sum- 
mer," he  could  firmly  state  that  he  had 
called  for  five  hundred  thousand.  It  was 
then  that  he  said  in  self-defence:  "What 


Xfncolnfcd  147 

use  to  me  would  be  a  second  term  if  I 
had  no  country  ?  " 

One  Dies  but  Once. 

A  widow  woman  of  his  early  acquaint- 
ance approached  Lincoln,  when  President, 
to  renew  the  friendship,  for  he  had  saved 
her  son  from  a  false  charge  of  murder 
without  any  expense,  though  it  had  cost 
him  precious  time  during  his  campaign  for 
the  senatorship  in  1858.  Like  a  good 
many  persons  in  the  West,  who  had  known 
him  in  his  despondent  period  and  who 
were  superstitious,  she  shared  in  the  be- 
lief which  his  stepmother  had  also  en- 
tertained that  he  was  not  destined  to  live 
to  a  great  age. 

"  Hannah  Armstrong,"  he  said,  smil- 
ing, in  his  mysterious  way,  "  if  they  do 
kill  me,  I  shall  never  die  another  death !  " 

Lincoln's  "  Leg  Cases." 

When  the  people  in  Washington  saw 
the  lights  burning  late  in  the  Executive 


us  Xtncolnfcs 

Mansion,  though  there  was  no  Cabinet 
council,  they  would  say,  explanatorily, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  stranger  in  the 
capital : 

"  That  is  the  President,  sitting  up  over 
private  business.  It  is  his  great  heart. 
He  is  trying  to  reconcile  it  with  military 
duty,  I  guess, — going  to  try  to  let  off 
some  foolish  or  rash  young  fellow  for  the 
sake  of  his  old  folks." 

There  was,  for  example,  the  case  of  a 
deserter,  whose  old  father  sent  a  despatch 
to  Senator  Jessenden,  pleading  that  he 
could  shortly  provide  proofs  that  the 
young  man  was  not  an  offender,  but  im- 
ploring time.  The  operator  strove  to 
discover  the  whereabouts  of  the  senator, 
as  he  had  not  his  address.  On  finding 
him  and  communicating  the  intelligence, 
the  senator  promptly  hastened  to  the 
President,  and  had  the  satisfaction  of 
"  redeeming  the  captive  "  on  the  eve  of 
execution. 
Schuyler  Colfax  relates  another  of  these 


Xtncolntcd  149 

cases  of  clemency,  but  one  which  was  not 
as  deserving  as  the  above.  Judge  Holt 
had  the  matter  in  hand  and  brought  the 
papers  to  the  President  to  have  him  sign 
the  death-warrant.  Lincoln's  leniency 
was  a  football  between  himself  and  the 
War  Department. 

"  This  case,"  said  the  Judge,  "  is  one 
which  comes  exactly  within  your  require- 
ments. The  soldier  does  not  deny  his 
guilt;  he  will  better  serve  the  country 
dead  than  living,  as  he  has  no  relations 
to  mourn  for  him,  and  he  is  not  fit  to  be 
in  the  ranks  of  patriots,  at  any  rate." 
Mr.  Lincoln's  refuge  of  excuse  was  all 
swept  away.  Judge  Holt  expected,  of 
course,  that  he  would  write  "  Approved  " 
on  the  paper;  but  the  President,  running 
his  long  fingers  through  his  hair,  as  he  so 
often  used  to  do  when  in  anxious  thought, 
replied,  "  Well,  after  all,  Judge,  I  think 
I  must  put  this  with  my  leg  cases." 

"  Leg  cases,"  said  Judge  Holt,  with  a 
frown  at  this  supposed  levity  of  the  Presi- 


iso  Xincolnfcs 

dent,  in  a  case  of  life  or  death.  "  What 
do  you  mean  by  leg  cases,  sir?" 

"  Why,"  replied  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  do  you 
see  these  papers  crowded  into  those  pig- 
eon-holes? They  are  the  cases  that  you 
call  by  that  long  title,  '  cowardice  in  the 
face  of  the  enemy,'  but  I  call  them,  for 
short,  my  '  leg  cases.'  But  I  put  it  to 
you,  and  I  leave  it  for  you  to  decide  for 
yourself:  If  Almighty  God  gives  a  man 
a  cowardly  pair  of  legs  how  can  he  help 
their  running  away  with  him  ?  " 

How  true  was  the  ancient  saying:  "  It 
is  wise  to  know  when  to  play  the  j  ester  "  ! 

This  may  remind  one  of  the  story  told 
of  King  Henry  of  Navarre  (Fourth  of 
France)  who,  being  seized  with  nervous 
trembling  at  the  outset  of  a  battle,  cried 
to  his  staff:  "Oh,  cowardly  custard  of 
a  body!  do  you  quake  now?  I  will  take 
you  to  a  hot  corner  where  you  will  have 
something  to  shake  for !  "  whereupon  he 
spurred  into  the  heat  of  the  conflict  with 
his  quivering  body. 


Xfncolntcs  151 

"Don't  Swap  Horses  Crossing  the 
Stream." 

In  the  troubled  days  when  Washington 
and  Richmond  scowlingly  confronted  each 
other  our  "  Delenda  est  Carthago  !  "  re- 
sounded in  the  Senates  on  the  Potomac 
and  on  the  James.  The  fleeting  show  of 
commanders  for  the  Union  forces,  a  new 
head  quickly  replacing  a  decapitated 
chief,  emboldened  the  wire-pullers  who 
had  a  supply  of  round  puppets  for  the 
square  hole.  Driven  to  the  wall  by  this 
persistent  sinning  against  the  hallowed 
rule  never  to  retire  a  general  under  the 
enemy's  fire,  the  President,  nominally 
generalissimo,  replied  to  an  importunate 
trumpeter  of  still  another  Bonaparte: 

"  There  is  a  good  old  saying  in  the  sec- 
tion of  the  country  where  I  came  from: 
'  Don't  swap  horses  crossing  the  stream.'  " 

The  story  in  detail  is   as   follows: 

Two  men  were  travelling  in  the  Blue 
Grass  country  where  the  rivers  run  bank- 


152  Xincolntcd 

high  during  a  freshet.  They  stopped  at 
what  was,  in  drier  times,  a  ford.  The 
clay  had  dyed  the  foaming  waters  the 
color  of  madder,  and  the  crossing  was 
only  discernible  to'  the  mind's  eye. 
Nevertheless,  relying  on  the  intelligence 
of  their  horses  both  men  rode  into  the  an- 
gry waters.  When  a  third  of  the  way  over, 
the  excellence  of  their  mounts  in  battling 
with  the  obstacles  encountered  elicited 
frank  expressions  of  praise.  When  half- 
way over,  the  animals  still  meriting  eul- 
ogy, spite  of  pitfalls,  mudholes,  and 
"  sawyers,"  they  paused  and,  ignoring 
their  fix,  continued  to  praise  their  steeds. 
Only,  each  commended  the  other's 
property. 

Totally  unfit  as  was  the  time  and  the 
place  for  a  "  trade,"  they  actually  struck 
hands  on  an  exchange  of  beasts  and,  what 
was  more  preposterous,  though  showing 
what  accomplished  horsemen  they  were,1 

'Though  it  may  seem  hard  to  believe,  the 
writer  has  seen  a  Mexican,  for  exhibition  in 
a  race  of  some  length,  transfer  himself  from 


Ztncolnfcs  153 

they  undertook  to  change  from  one  saddle 
to  the  other.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
the  attempt  came  to  grief,  as  at  the  criti- 
cal moment,  when  neither  was  seated,  a 
sudden  swelling  of  the  flood  carried  both 
off  their  standing  and  forced  them  to 
swim  to  shore.  The  horses  were  swept 
away  and  probably  came  to  an  anchorage 
under  the  bluffs.  They  had  to  cast  about 
to  make  a  fire  and  dry  their  clothes. 
Then  in  their  buckskin  breeches,  fitting 
torturously  tight,  they  tracked  it  home  on 
foot,  where  they  had  to  relate  their  rash 
adventure.  Hence  the  tale  and  the 
moral : 

"  Do   not   swap   horses   in  crossing  the 
stream." 

Plow  Around  the  Log. 
The  absolute  newness  of  military  con- 
one  saddle  to  another  without  halt.  The  ques- 
tion being  put  to  him  in  relation  to  this  tale. 
"Leon,  could  you  swap  saddles  in  a  flood?" 
He  stoutly  responded,  not  knowing  the  joke: 
"  If  it  did  not  come  over  the  bow  to  make  the 
seat  slippery,  why — certero  !  cert!" 


>54  Xtncolnics 

scription  in  the  United  States  and  the 
indefatigable  attempts  of  nearly  all  con- 
cerned to  avoid  their  obligations  gave  rise 
to  many  contentions.  A  State  governor, 
charged  with  his  con-citizens'  grievances 
and  his  own  consequent  embarrassments, 
rushed  to  Secretary  Stanton  and  was  re- 
ceived in  a  manner  quite  in  accordance 
with  that  official's  overbearing  character; 
thereupon  he  hastened  to  the  President 
to  rehearse  his  reception  as  an  additional 
matter  to  be  remedied.  To  the  amaze- 
ment of  a  friend  he  came  from  a  three 
hours'  interview  appeased,  and  departed 
smilingly  for  home. 

His  introductor  no  sooner  saw  the 
Chief  than  he  eagerly  inquired  by  what 
concessions  he  had  pacified  the  irritated 
governor  and  sent  him  away  in  good 
humor. 

"  Oh,  I  did  not  concede  anything,"  ex- 
plained the  President.  "  You  know  how 
the  Illinois  farmer  managed  the  big  log 
that  lay  in  the  middle  of  his  field?  To 


Xincclnics  155 

the  inquiries  of  his  neighbors  one  Sun- 
day, he  responded  that  he  had  got  rid  of 
the  big  log. 

'  How  ever  did  you  do  it?  It  was  too 
big  to  haul  away,  too  knotty  to  split,  too 
wet  and  soggy  to  burn;  how  ever  did  you 
do  it?' 

'  Well,  now,  boys/  said  the  farmer, 
'  if  you  won't  tell  the  secret,  I  '11  tell  you 
how.  I  just  plowed  around  it.' 

"  Now,"  said  Lincoln  to  the  questioner, 
"  don't  tell  anybody,  but  I  just  '  plowed 
around '  the  governor.  But  it  took  me 
three  mortal  hours  to  do  it,  and  I  was 
afraid  every  minute  that  he  would  see  what 
I  was  at." 

Related  by  General  J.  B.  Fry. 

"  I  will  Risk  the  Dictatorship." 

"  I  have  placed  you  at  the  head  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  .  .  I  have 
heard  ...  of  your  recently  saying  that 
both  the  army  and  the  Government 
needed  a  dictator.  Of  course  it  was 


156  Xincolnics 

not  for  this,  but  in  spite  of  it,  that  I  have 
given  you  the  command.  .  .  What  I 
now  ask  of  you  is  military  success,  and 
I  will  risk  the  dictatorship !  " 

Letter  to  General  Hooker,  Jan.,  1863. 

Still  Heard  From. 

In  the  fall  of  1 863,  when  General  Burn- 
side  had  penetrated  so  far  within  the 
enemy's  lines  in  Tennessee  that  his  situ- 
ation was  regarded  as  critical,  a  telegram 
reached  headquarters  stating  that  "  firing 
was  heard  towards  Knoxville.  " 

"  I  am  glad  of  it !  "  exclaimed  the 
President.  Asked  the  cause  of  his  glad- 
ness, he  returned :  "  Because  I  am  re- 
minded of  Mrs.  Sallie  Ward,  a  neighbor 
of  mine,  who  had  a  large  family.  Occa- 
sionally, one  of  her  numerous  progeny 
would  be  heard  crying  from  some  out-of- 
the-way  place,  upon  which  Mrs.  Ward 
would  exclaim: 

'  Thank  the  Lord,  there  's  one  of  my 
children  is  n't  dead  yet/  " 


Zfncolnfcs  157 

Ncbility  Not  a  Bar  in  our  Army. 

A  foreign  officer  who  tendered  his  ser- 
vices to  the  country,  and  was  promised  a 
commission,  thought  it  a  clincher  to  an- 
nounce that  he  had  other  than  military 
claims  to  the  favor,  and  mentioned  his 
letter  of  nobility. 

"  Oh,  never  mind,"  said  the  President, 
"  you  will  find  that  no  obstacle  to  your 
advancement." 

"  Take  the  People  into  our 
Confidence.1* 

In  1863,  President  Lincoln  had  full 
powers  and  was  as  nearly  an  autocrat  as  a 
constitutional  ruler  could  be;  but  as  far 
as  possible,  he  in  no  way  relaxed  the 
frank  and  neighborly  manner  which  he 
had  imported  from  the  free-and-easy 
West.  A  reporter  once  stated  that  he 
had  been  invited  to  attend  a  meeting  of 
the  war  governors  in  Washington,  and 
that  the  President  had  sanctioned  the  in- 


IBS  Xincoinics 

vitation.  But  at  the  meeting  one  °f  the 
officials  objected  to  the  presence  °^  an 
"  outsider  "  and  the  reporter  was  ni?^ng 
off  when  Lincoln  intervened. 

"  Wait  a  minute,  young  man/'  said  he, 
and  then  explained  that  he  had  consented 
to  his  being  present — "  for  I  don't  intend 
to  say  anything  to-day  that  is  secret  in 
any  sense,"  he  continued,  "  and  I  thought 
we  might  just  as  well  take  the  people  into 
our  confidence.  However,  it  is  for  you 
gentlemen  to  say." 

The  position  had  become  so  uncomfort- 
able for  the  newspaper  man  that  he  bowed 
himself  out.  He  never  knew  what  fur- 
ther was  said  about  it,  but  that  night 
Governor  Buckingham  gave  him  a  report 
of  the  meeting. 

Better  Say  Nothing. 

At  the  opening  of  the  war  and  during 
its  progress,  the  national  weakness  for 
speeches  on  all  occasions  became  a  posi- 


Xincolnfcs  159 

tive  burden  to  public  men,  particularly  as 
audiences  always  expected  a  speaker  to  be 
equipped  with  a  full  quiver  of  apposite 
remarks.  It  was  truly  said  of  the  Presi- 
dent that  "  Abundat  dulcibus  vitiis  (He 
abounds  in  pleasant  thoughts),"  but  he 
knew  also  when  to  be  silent.  At  one  time 
in  1863,  when  all  the  prominent  person- 
ages were  called  upon  to  make  speeches, 
Lincoln  at  his  turn  sensibly  said: 

"  I   appear   before   you,   fellow-citizens, 
merely  to  thank  you  for  this  compliment. 
The  inference  is  a  very  fair  one  that  you 
would  hear  me  for  a  little  while  at  least, 
were  I  to  commence  to  make  a  speech.     I 
do  not  appear  before  you  for  the  purpose 
of   doing   so,   and   for   several   substantial 
isons.     The  most  substantial  of  these  is 
^  I   have  no  speech  to  make.     In  my 
^tion  it  is  somewhat  important  that  I 
slicftild    not    say    any    foolish    things.      [A 
voice,  '  If  you  can  help  it.']      It  very  of- 
ten happens  that  the  only  way  to  help  it 
is  to  say  nothing  at   all.     Believing  that 


160  Xincolnfcs 

is  my  present  condition  this  evening,  I 
must  beg  of  you  to  excuse  me  from  ad- 
dressing you  further." 

A  Trenchant  Stroke  of  Wit. 

Under  the  most  severe  strain,  the  Presi- 
dent most  invariably  had  recourse  to 
humor.  His  rival,  for  a  time,  for  popu- 
larity, General  McClellan,  was  pro- 
nounced by  him  frankly  "  a  pleasant 
and  scholarly  gentleman."  Before  being 
forced  to  remove  him,  for  the  failure  of 
his  "  scholarly "  plans  to  fruit,  Lincoln 
said:  "  If  the  General  has  no  use  for  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  I  should  like  to 
borrow  it  for  a  little  while."  When  the 
same  General,  developing  political  pru- 
dence, kept  silence  in  regard  to  the  cam- 
paign paper  known  as  "the  Chicago 
Letter,"  Lincoln  gave,  as  a  reason,  thaC 
the  advocate  of  the  spade  and  pick — Mc- 
Clellan  was  an  engineer  officer  by  training 
— was  "  entrenching." 


3Lincolnfc3  161 

"  Paint  Me  With  the  Wart." 

When  the  Lord  Protector  of  England 
sat  for  his  likeness  to  Cooper,  an  eminent 
painter  of  the  time,  he  protested  on  find- 
ing that  the  artist  was  going  to  draw  him 
in  profile: 

"  No,  a  full  face — paint  me  with  the 
wart!" 

In  an  equally  frank  way,  though  with 
his  gentle  irony,  President  Lincoln  said  to 
the  portrait  painter,  Mr.  Frank  Carpenter: 

"  Do  you  think  you  can  make  a  hand- 
some picture  of  me  ?  " 

"  A  General,  at  Last." 

During  the  war  the  most  indulgent 
critic  of  the  military  movements  could 
not  refrain  from  laughing  at  the  long- 
drawn-out  pageant  of  commanders  in  the 
Virginia  Valley,  from  "  Old  Fuss-and- 
feathers  " — for  even  age  and  proven  talent 
did  not  save  General  Scott,  the  patri- 
arch-general, from  the  American  pro- 
pensity to  bestow  nicknames  upon  their 
11 


i62  Xincolnica 

servitors,  as  the  Romans  gave  crowns  to 
theirs — to  the  "  great  arithmeticians  who 
had  never  set  a  squadron  in  the  field," 
much  less  handled  an  army  of  defence. 
When  the  Western  Marius  (New  Car- 
thage had  fallen  to  his  arms)  reached 
Washington,  he  was  a  disappointment — 
the  taciturn,  cigar-smoking,  statuesque 
Grant,  who  "  promised  no  reviews  for  the 
amusement  of  the  Washington  ladies  and 
no  '  show  business.'  " 

He  had  a  private  interview  with  the 
President,  of  which  he  has  given  an  ac- 
count in  his  Memoirs.  At  its  close,  Lin- 
coln said  to  an  inquirer: 

"  Thank  God,  we  have  a  General,  at 
last !  " 

Do  Not  Break,  but  Hold  On  ! 

"  I  have  seen  your  despatch  expressing 
your  unwillingness  to  break  your  hold. 
Neither  am  I  willing.  Hold  on  with  a 
bull-dog  grip." 

President    Lincoln    to    General    Grant, 
August,  1863. 


Xtncolnfcs  163 

"Government  Of  the  People,  By  the 

People,  and  For  the  People,  Shall 

Not  Perish ! " 

"  Four-score  and  seven  years  ago  our 
fathers  brought  forth  upon  this  continent 
a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty,  and 
dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men 
are  created  equal.  Now  we  are  engaged 
in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that 
nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and 
so  dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are 
met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war. 
We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of 
that  field  as  a  final  resting  place  for  those 
who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation 
might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and 
proper  that  we  should  do  this.  But  in  a 
larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  can- 
.iiot  consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow  this 
ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead, 
^ho  struggled  here  have  consecrated  it 
far  above  our  power  to  add  or  detract. 
The  world  will  little  note.^  nor  long 


164  Hfncoinics 

remember,  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can 
never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is 
for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated 
here  to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who 
fought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  ad- 
vanced. It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here 
dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  be- 
fore us,  that  from  these  honored  dead  we 
take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for 
which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of 
devotion;  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that 
these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain; 
that  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a 
new  birth  of  freedom,  and  THAT  GOVERN- 
MENT OF  THE  PEOPLE,  BY  THE  PEOPLE, 

AND  FOR  THE  PEOPLE,  shall  not  perish 
from  the  earth." 

Address,  dedicating  the  National  Ceme- 
tery at  Gettysburg,  Nov.  19,  1863. 

This  speech  contains  but  266  word 
According  to  Edward  Everett1  it  eclipse 
his  own  elaborate  oration  on  the  sa:ue 

1  Fdward  Everett  was  deemed  at  the  time 
the  foremost  orator  of  the  country. 


lincolnfcs  165 

occasion.  It  was  read  from  a  few  sheets 
of  foolscap,  but  was  the  result  of  four 
or  five  espays  to  reach  perfection.  It 
lasted  five  minutes — and  will  live  forever. 
Unwittingly  it  was  a  verbal  duel  between 
colloquial  and  literary  language. 

For  a  Soldiers'  Cemetery. 

On  visiting  the  cemetery  of  the  Sol- 
diers' Home  in  Washington,  the  President 
«aid: 

'  How  sleep  the  brave  who  sink  to  rest 
By  all  their  country's  wishes  blest! 


And  women  o'er  the  graves  shall  weep, 
Where  nameless  heroes  calmly  sleep/  " 

All  Hands  and  No  Mouths. 

"  I  hold  that  if  the  Almighty  had  ever 
made  a  set  of  men  that  should  do  all 
the  eating  and  none  of  the  work,  He 
would  have  made  them  with  mouths  only 


i66  OLlncolnics 

and  no  hands;  and  if  He  had  ever  made 
another  class  that  He  intended  should  do 
all  the  work  and  no  eating,  He  would 
have  made  them  with  hands  only  and  no 
mouths." 

On  the  Women  in  the  War. 

"  I  have  never  studied  the  art  of  paying 
compliments  to  women;  but  I  must  say 
that,  if  all  that  has  been  said  i>y  orators 
and  poets,  since  the  creation  of  the  world, 
in  praise  of  women,  were  applied  to  the 
women  of  America,  it  would  not  do  them 
justice  for  their  conduct  during  this  war. 
God  bless  the  women  of  America !  " 

At  a  Soldiers1  Fair,  at  Washington, 
186—. 

"The  Handsomest  Man." 

A  mother  had  obtained  the  pardon  for  her 
son,  condemned  by  a  court-martial,  through 
personal  intercession  with  the  President. 
Her  explanations  justified  giving  the  par- 
don. On  leaving  the  room,  she  broke  out: 


Xfncolnfcs  167 

"  I  knew  it  was  a  '  Copperhead  '  lie ! 
Why,  they  told  me  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
an  ugly-looking  man,  and  it  is  a  lie.  He 
is  the  handsomest  man  I  ever  saw  in  my 
life." 

The  glow  of  goodness  had  transfigured 
him,  as  has  been  noticed  in  other  instances. 

By  Thaddeus  Stevens,  the  intercessor 
in  question. 

The  Pact  with  Divinity. 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation  was 
issued  New  Year's  day,  1863.  In  the 
preceding  September  the  Confederates  had 
been  defeated  at  the  battle  of  Antietam. 
Lincoln  presented  his  draft  of  the  procla- 
mation at  the  next  Cabinet  meeting,  where 
he  made  the  statement  that  he  had  made 
a  solemn  vow  before  God,  that  if  General 
Lee  were  driven  back  from  Pennsylvania 
he  would  crown  the  result  by  the  declara- 
tion of  freedom  to  the  slave. 

On  signing  the  document  he  remarked: 


i68  OLincolntcs 

"  This  signature  will  be  closely  examined 
and  if  they  find  that  my  hand  trembled 
they  will  say  that  I  hesitated  or  was  irres- 
olute. But,"  continued  the  author  of 
that  noblest  gift  to  the  negro,  "  it  is  not 
because  of  any  uncertainty  or  hesitancy 
on  my  part — only  [it  was  after  the  New 
Year  public  reception],  three  hours'  hand- 
shaking is  not  calculated  to  improve  a 
man's  chirography." 

"  It  Is  My  Object  to  Break  up  that 
Game." 

In  September,  1863,  a  peculiar  kind  of 
sedition  seethed  in  the  army  before 
Washington.  It  was  stated  to  President 
Lincoln  that  a  Major  Key,  on  General 
McClellan's  staff,  had  replied  to  a  brother 
officer  that  "  the  game  was  to  exhaust  both 
armies  by  fruitless  operations  so  that  a 
compromise  could  be  effected  and  slavery, 
as  an  institution,  saved." 

Summoned  before  the  President,  as  his 
chief,  the  Major  did  not  deny  his  words 


Xincolnfcs  169 

or  their  substance,  but  protested  his 
loyalty. 

The  judge  said:  "Gentlemen,  if  there 
is  a  '  game,'  even  among  Union  men,  not 
to  have  our  army  take  any  advantage  of 
the  enemy  it  can,  it  is  my  object  to  break 
up  that  game." 

The  offender  was  cashiered,  and  Lin- 
coln privately  commented: 

"  Dismissed,  because  I  thought  his  silly, 
treasonable  expressions  were  '  staff  talk,' 
and  I  wished  to  make  an  example." 

"  I  Can  Bear  Censure,  but  Not 
Insult." 

A  cashiered  officer  persisted  several 
times  in  presenting  to  the  President  a  plea 
for  his  reinstatement,  and  was  finally  as- 
sured that  even  his  own  statement  did  not 
justify  a  rehearing.  His  final  application 
being  met  with  silence  he  lost  temper  and 
blurted  out: 

"  Well,  Mr.  President,  I  see  that  you 
are  fully  determined  not  to  do  me  justice." 


i?o  Xlncolnics 

Without  evincing  any  emotion  Mr. 
Lincoln  rose,  laid  some  papers  on  the 
desk;  and  suddenly  seizing  the  officer  by 
the  coat-collar,  marched  him  to  the  door. 
After  ejecting  him  into  the  hall,  he  said: 

"  Sir,  I  give  you  fair  warning  never  to 
show  yourself  here  again!  I  can  bear 
censure,  but  not  insult." 

To  the  Army  and  the  Navy. 

Nothing  more  plainly  and  loudly  pro- 
claims the  modesty  of  Lincoln  than  his 
eulogy  of  the  Army  and  Navy  when 
he  publicly  expressed  his  gratitude  with- 
out taking  one  laurel-leaf  to  himself. 
What  a  contrast  to  the  vainglorious  bulle- 
tins of  Napoleon. 

Lincoln's  Tribute  to  the  U.  S.  Army: 
"  No  part  of  the  honor  for  the  plan  or  the 
execution  [of  the  ending  of  the  Rebellion] 
is  mine.  To  General  Grant,  his  skilful  offi- 
cers and  brave  men,  it  all  belongs."  1865. 

Lincoln's  Tribute  to  the  U.  S.  Navy: 
In  a  paper  dated  1864,  intended  to  be 


Xlncolnlca  171 

read  at  a  sailors'  fair  at  Baltimore,  he 
commended  the  navy  for  its  great  ser- 
vices and  efficiency. 

For  Readiness  in  Emergency,  Work 
for  a  Living. 

By  the  see-saw  of  fortune,  the  victories 
in  the  West,  in  1863,  counterbalanced  the 
defeats  in  the  East.  Among  the  con- 
spicuous generals  rose  General  Garfield, 
who  executed  feats  in  reinforcing,  bring- 
ing up  needed  supplies,  and  a  daring  ride, 
worthy  to  be  bracketed  with  General 
Sheridan's. 

Lincoln  asked  of  a  regular  army  offi- 
cer how  it  was  that  an  amateur,  like  Gar- 
field,  should  accomplish  in  two  weeks 
what  a  trained  officer  would  have  wanted 
two  months  to  effect. 

"  Because  he  was  not  educated  at  West 
Point,"  was  the  satirical  reply. 

"  No,  that  is  not  the  reason.  It  is  be- 
cause, when  Garfield  was  a  boy,  he  had 
to  work  for  a  living." 


i?2  Zincolnic* 

Trust  the  Poor. 

"  No  men  living  are  more  worthy  to 
be  trusted  than  those  who  toil  up  from 
poverty;  none  less  inclined  to  take  or 
touch  aught  which  they  have  not  hon- 
estly earned." 

Set  your  Feet  Right,  and  then 
Stand  Firm  ! 

One  day  when  Lincoln  was  escorting 
two  ladies  to  the  Soldiers'  Home  they 
were  all  compelled  to  leave  the  carriage, 
owing  to  the  bad  condition  of  the  road 
due  to  excessive  rain.  Mr.  Lincoln  placed 
three  stones  for  stepping-stones  from  the 
curb  to  the  vehicle.  While  assisting  the 
ladies  to  firm  land,  he  remarked: 

"  All  through  life,  be  sure  you  put 
your  feet  in  the  right  place,  and  then 
stand  firm !  " 

"  Keep  Faith  with  Friend  and  Foe." 
"  There   have   been   men   base    enough 


Xfncolntcs  173 

to  propose  to  me  to  return  to  slavery  our 
black  warriors  of  Port  Hudson  and  Olus- 
tee,  and  thus  win  the  respect  of  the 
masters  they  fought.  Should  I  do  so,  I 
should  deserve  to  be  damned  in  time  and 
eternity.  Come  what  will,  I  will  keep  my 
faith  with  friend  and  foe." 

On  July  30,  1863,  the  President  issued 
an  Executive  order  placing  black  soldiers 
on  an  equality  with  white.  Unfortunately, 
the  Secretary  of  War  contravened  this 
with  an  order  of  his  own,  which  caused 
a  confusion  unhappy  both  for  the  colored 
soldiers  and  for  the  captured  rebels,  who 
were  held  man  for  man  and  treated  pre- 
cisely as  were  the  black  prisoners  by  the 
Confederates — that  is,  restored  to  the  con- 
ditions during  slavery.  Previously,  a 
cartel  had  allowed  exchange  without  rec- 
ognizing the  rebels  as  belligerents.  Later, 
when  there  was  the  large  number  of 
captives  from  Vicksburg,  etc.,  Stanton 
refused  to  exchange,  because  it  would  re- 
inforce the  failing  cause  with  sound  men. 


174  Xincolnice 

General  Grant  finally  compelled  the 
strict  military  rule  to  be  complied  with 
regardless  of  politics  or  policy.  But  the 
colored  soldiers  suffered  more  than  the 
white  ones.  President  Lincoln  spoke  the 
above  words  to  some  Western  visitors  on 
the  definite  repeal  of  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  in  1864. 


Go  Home  and  Raise  the  Men ! 

It  has  long  been  asserted,  and  it  is 
fairly  proved,  that  the  first  nomination 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  for  President,  and 
the  determined  prevention  of  his  being 
shelved  into  the  candidacy  for  Vice-P resi- 
dent in  I860,  was  due  to  a  concerted  and 
well-matured  plan  elaborated  by  Mr.  Me- 
dill  of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  and  by  other 
writers  and  politicians  of  Illinois.  This 
seems  to  be  borne  out  by  Mr.  Medill's  ac- 
count of  an  interview  with  the  President 
in  1864.  The  call  for  more  troops  re- 


Zincolnfcs  175 

volted  the  citizens  of  Chicago.  Medill 
went  with  a  deputation  of  Cook  County 
citizens  to  demand  a  reduction  of  its  quota. 
They  argued  in  vain  with  Secretary  Stan- 
ton  and  with  General  James  B.  Fry  in 
the  President's  hearing.  The  question 
was  finally  referred  to  him. 

Mr.    Medill    relates    that: 

"  He  suddenly  lifted  his  head  and 
turned  on  us  a  black  and  frowning  face. 

1 '  Gentlemen/  he  said  in  a  voice  full 
of  bitterness,  '  after  Boston,  Chicago  has 
been  the  chief  instrument  of  bringing  the 
war  upon  this  country.  .  .  It  is  you 
who  are  largely  responsible  for  making 
blood  flow  as  it  has.  You  called  for  war 
until  we  had  it.  You  called  for  emanci- 
pation, and  I  have  given  it  to  you.  What- 
ever you  have  asked,  you  have  had. 

"  Now  you  come  here,  begging  to  be 
let  off  from  the  call  for  men  which  I  have 
made  to  carry  out  the  war  you  demanded. 
You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourselves! 
Go  home,  and  raise  your  six  thousand 


i?6  Xfncolnics 

extra  men!       Go  home,  and  send  us  those 
men ! ' ' 

Abashed,     they     returned     -home — but 
raised  and  sent  the  men. 


Going  Down  with  Colors  Flying. 

It  was  considered  very  injudicious,  po- 
litically, that  almost  coincident  with  Lin- 
coln's renomination  for  President  he 
should  issue  a  call  for  500,000  more  men. 
The  Cabinet  officers  were  mouthpieces  for 
the  objections. 

"  Gentlemen,"  replied  the  President, 
"  it  is  not  necessary  that  I  should  be  re- 
elected,  but  it  is  necessary  that  our  brave 
boys  should  be  supported  and  the  country 
saved.  If  I  go  down  under  this  measure, 
I  will  go  down  like  the  Cumberland  l  with 
my  colors  flying." 

1  The  IT.  S.  Ships  Congress  and  Cumberland 
were  sunk  by  the  Confederate  ram  Merrimae, 
March,  1862. 


lincolnfcs  177 

"With  a  Brave  Army  and  a  Just 
Cause—" 

"  Not  expecting  to  see  you  again  .  .  . 
I  wish  to  express  .  .  .  my  entire  sat- 
isfaction with  what  you  have  done  up  to 
this  time  .  .  .  And  now,  with  a  brave 
army  and  a  just  cause,  may  God  sustain 
you!" 

[Letter  of  the  President  to  General 
Grant,  April  30,  1864.], 

The  Solemn  Pride  of  Patriotic 
Sacrifice. 

Executive  Mansion,  Washington, 

Nov.  21,  1864. 
MRS.  BIXBY,  Boston,  Mass. 

DEAR  MADAM: — I  have  been  shown  in 
the  files  of  the  War  Department  a  state- 
ment of  the  Adjutant-General  of  Massa- 
chusetts that  you  are  the  mother  of  five 
sons  who  have  died  gloriously  on  the  field 
of  battle.  I  feel  how  weak  and  fruitless 
must  be  any  words  of  mine  which  should 


i?8  Lincoln  ice 

attempt  to  beguile  you  from  the  grief  of 
a  loss  so  overwhelming.  But  I  cannot 
refrain  from  tendering  to  you  the  con- 
solation that  may  be  found  in  the  thanks 
of  the  Republic  they  died  to  save.  I 
pray  that  our  Heavenly  Father  may  as- 
suage the  anguish  of  your  bereavement, 
and  leave  you  only  the  cherished  memory 
of  the  loved  and  lost,  and  the  solemn  pride 
that  must  be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly 
a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  freedom. 
Yours  very  sincerely  and  respectfully, 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"I  Want  to  See  Her  Spread 
Herself!" 

During  the  civil  struggle,  the  agitation 
in  Washington,  which  was  almost  be- 
leaguered, found  vent  in  animated  discus- 
sions, and,  even  in  the  White  House, 
where  the  importance  of  the  chief's  re- 
pose should  have  preserved  decorum,  the 
ushers  and  guardians  assembled  in  their 
waiting  room  to  wrangle  and  debate.  The 


baited  President  had  issued  special  in- 
structions to  stop  these  sessions,  but  they 
were  unheeded  from  pure  need  of  doing 
something  to  break  the  tension  of  waiting. 
One  evening,  the  amateur  congress  was 
assembled,  discussing  the  news  and  the 
more  plentiful  rumors,  when  they  were 
amazed  by  the  unannounced  entrance  of 
the  President  in  his  stockinged  feet,  un- 
ceremoniously carrying  his  shoes  in  his 
hand.  The  hubbub  had  helped  him  in  his 
attempted  stealthiness,  for  he  was  not  a 
fairy-light  walker.  At  the  apparition  of 
this  "  lean  and  slippered  Pantaloon,"  the 
meeting  promptly  dissolved,  the  members 
seeming  to  melt  away.  Their  dean  alone 
stayed,  the  senior  usher,  Pendel,1  Mr, 
Lincoln's  own  appointee  whom  he  prized 
for  his  kindness  to  his  children.  The  dis- 
turbed master  shook  his  long  bony  finger 
at  him  and  said: 

1  Mr.  Thomas  F.  Pendel,  usher  specially  ap- 
pointed by  President  Lincoln  in  1864,  and  in 
service  in  1900. 


xSo  Xincolnfcs 

"  Pendel,  you  people  remind  me  of  the 
boy  who  set  forty-three  eggs  under  a  hen. 
He  then  rushed  indoors  and  told  his 
mother  what  he  had  done. 

"  '  But  a  hen  cannot  set  on  forty-three 
eggs/  remonstrated  his  mother. 

'  No,  I  guess  not ;  but  I  j  ust  want  to 
see   her   spread   herself! ' 

"  That 's  what  I  wanted  to  see  you  boys 
do,  when  I  came  in  and  caught  you  trans- 
gressing," concluded  the  President,  as 
he  returned  to  his  own  apartment. 

Shape  Words  to  Turn  to  Men  and 
Guns. 

In  excusing  himself  from  attending  a 
mass  meeting  in  New  York  in  honor  of 
General  Grant,  whose  line  of  victories  was 
beginning  to  point  to  the  final  one,  the 
President  wrote: 

"  Grant  and  his  brave  soldiers  are  now 
in  the  midst  of  their  great  trial;  and  I 
trust  that,  at  your  meeting,  you  will  so 


shape  your  good  words  that  they  may  turn 
to  men  and  guns  moving  to  his  and  their 
support." 

"  Civil  and  Political  Equality  to 
Both  Races." 

"  The  restoration  of  the  rebel  States 
to  the  Union  must  rest  upon  the  principle 
of  civil  and  political  equality  of  both 
races;  and  it  must  be  sealed  by  general 
amnesty." 

[Letter  to  General  Wadsworth,  1864.] 

"  Take  the  Responsibility  and  Act." 

General  Grant  himself  relates  that  when 
the  President  invested  the  general  from 
the  West  with  the  rank  of  Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral  he  stated  that  "  all  he  wanted  or 
ever  had  wanted  was  some  one  who  would 
take  the  responsibility  and  act." 

March  12,  1864. 


1 82  Xincotnic* 

The  Work  a   Duty— the  Gratitude 
to  God. 

To  a  deputation  of  the  Christian  Com- 
mission, testifying  to  the  debt  they  owed 
him,  Lincoln  said: 

"  My  friends,  you  owe  me  no  gratitude 
for  what  I  have  done;  and  I,  I  may  say, 
owe  you  no  gratitude  for  what  you  have 
done;  just  as,  in  a  sense,  we  owe  no  grati- 
tude to  the  men  who  fought  our  battles 
for  us.  I  trust  that  this  has  been  for  us 
all  a  work  of  duty.  All  the  gratitude  is 
due  to  the  great  Giver  of  all  good." 

"  Got  'Em,  for  the  Third  Time  ! " 

As  the  end  of  the  Civil  War  approached, 
the  capital  was  repeatedly  thrilled  by  re- 
ports that  "  the  backbone  of  the  Rebel- 
lion "  was  broken  at  last.  On  hearing 
these  rumors  the  President  would  only 
shrug  one  shoulder  which,  like  a  printer's, 
was  higher  than  the  other,  and  murmur: 

"  '  Got  'em  again,  for  the  third  time ! ' 


Xincolnics  183 

He  was  reminded,  he  said,  of  a  little 
incident  which  had  occurred  about  1820, 
and  which  was  for  years  the  talk  of  the 
neighborhood  in  Fulton  County,  111.  The 
Spoon  River  is  one  of  the  typical  streams 
of  the  Mid- West.  At  times  the  water  is 
high  enough  to  float  an  ocean  steamer 
"  e'ena'most,"  and  at  others  so  low  that 
the  bed  can  easily  be  traced.  It 
once  happened  that  a  little  steamboat 
named  the  Utility  left  the  Illinois  River 
and,  by  some  blunder,  got  into  the  Spoon, 
then  running  bank  high.  The  nearest 
steamboat  landing  was  at  Havana,  in  Ma- 
son County,  several  miles  from  Lewistown, 
so  the  Fulton  County  folks  were  not  accus- 
tomed to  the  sight  of  such  craft,  and  the 
idea  of  a  steamboat  getting  up  the  Spoon 
was  not  even  dreamed  of.  One  spring 
night  the  people  heard  strange  and  fear- 
ful sounds  rising  above  the  roaring  of  the 
waters  of  the  freshets;  they  turned  out 
of  doors  and  stared  with  surprise  to  see, 
over  the  tree  tops,  a  vessel  spouting  pitch- 


1 84  Zfncolntcd 

pine  smoke  and  flame,  while  the  whistling 
was  prodigious  and  uncanny.  One  of  the 
old  settlers,  Sam  Jenkins,  had  been  ca- 
rousing for  a  week,  and  it  was  "  about  the 
season  for  him  to  see  things."  When  he 
heard  this  terrible  noise  he  staggered  out 
of  doors  and  spying  the  monster,  looking 
like  Vesuvius  afloat,  he  threw  up  his 
palsied  hands  and  yelled: 

"  Boys,  I  have  got  'em  again,  for  the 
third  time!" 

The  river,  capricious  as  ever,  dropped 
suddenly  from  under  the  adventurous 
craft,  so  unhappily  attracted  to  that  point 
by  the  congenial  name  of  Fulton,  and 
left  it  high  and  dry  on  a  sand  bank.  The 
ingenious  proprietor  landed  her  machin- 
ery and  with  it  set  up  a  saw-mill.  The 
cabin  furniture  was  disposed  of  in  the 
neighborhood,  and  one  Davidson,  Sheriff 
of  Fulton  County,  bought  the  shabby  little 
rocking  chair.  Some  years  later,  during  a 
political  campaign  the  political  leader  of 
the  region,  "  Uncle  Nat "  Beadles,  was 


Xincolntca  185 

unable  to  offer  his  customary  hospitality 
to  the  Democratic  mouthpiece,  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,  and  it  chanced  that  not  only 
he,  but  Lincoln,  also  then  a  struggling 
law  student,  and  the  noted  itinerant 
preacher  Cartwright,  also  a  candidate, 
had  to  sleep  on  soft  feather  ticks  laid  on 
the  slab  or  puncheon  floor  of  the  David- 
son cabin.  Lincoln  rocked  to  and  fro 
in  the  rude  rocking  chair,  and  naturally 
was  much  amused  by  the  story  attached 
to  it. 

"  I  Count  for  Something ! " 

In  1864,  Louis  Napoleon  III.  foisted 
the  Archduke  Maximilian  of  Austria 
upon  the  Mexican  republic  as  Emperor. 
Some  of  the  Confederates  talked  of  fall- 
ing into  rank  with  their  Federal  foes,  to 
oust  the  foreigner,  and  this  front  of  the 
Americans,  combined  with  the  determined 
resentment  of  the  Mexicans,  compelled 
the  intriguing  French  Emperor  to  abandon 


1 86  Xmcolmcs 

his  brother  Caesar,  in  1 867.  Maximilian 
was  then  captured  and  shot  by  the  na- 
tives. Sounded  by  a  French  notable,  as  to 
the  status  between  France  and  the  United 
States  at  the  climax  of  this  crowned  fili- 
bustering, Lincoln  replied: 

"  There  has  been  war  enough.  I 
know  what  the  American  people  want; 
but,  thank  God!  I  count  for  something, 
and  during  my  second  term  there  will  be 
no  more  fighting." 

One  of  the  first  orders  of  Andrew  John- 
son, on  his  untimely  accession  to  the  Chair, 
in  1865,  accelerated  the  downfall  of 
Maximilian. 

A  Knock-Down  Argument. 

A  private  soldier  had  knocked  down 
his  captain,  and  a  court-martial  had  sen- 
tenced him  to  the  Dry  Tortugas.  His 
friends  bestirred  themselves  in  his  be- 
half, and  prevailed  upon  Judge  Schofield, 
a  personal  friend  of  President  Lincoln,  to 


lincolnfcs  187 

intercede  in  his  behalf.  Lincoln  paid 
close  attention  to  all  that  Schofield  had  to 
offer,  and  then  said: 

"  I  tell  you,  Judge,  you  go  right  down 
to  the  Capitol,  and  get  Congress  to  pass 
an  act  authorizing  a  private  soldier  to 
knock  down  his  captain.  Then  come 
back  here  and  I  will  pardon  your  man." 
The  Judge  saw  the  point,  and  withdrew. 

"  I  Am  the  Longest,  but  McClellan 
Is  Better-Looking." 

An  officer,  on  duty  at  Baltimore,  at- 
tended a  Democratic  meeting  and  made  a 
speech  for  General  McClellan,  who  was 
then  highly  popular  and  a  candidate  for 
the  coming  Presidential  election  which 
gave  Lincoln  his  second  term.  The  Secre- 
tary of  War  suspended  the  officer,  who 
thereupon  presented  himself  to  the  Presi- 
dent for  reinstatement. 

"  When  the  military  duties  of  an  officer 
are  fairly  and  faithfully  performed," 
pronounced  the  arbiter,  "  he  can  manage 


i83  %incolnic0 

his  politics  in  his  own  way.1  We  have 
no  more  to  do  with  that  than  with  his  re- 
ligion. .  .  Supporting  General  McClel- 
lan  is  no  violation  of  army  regulations, 
and,  as  a  question  of  taste,  choosing  be- 
tween him  and  me — well,  I  am  the  long- 
est, but  McClellan  is  better-looking." 

Veniam  Petimus  Dam  usque  Vicissim, 
(Horace). 

When  two  Confederate  agents  in  Can- 
ada, Thompson  and  Sanders,  desiring  to 
return  home,  craved  permission  of  Secre- 
tary of  War  Stanton  to  pass  through  the 
Northern  States,  Lincoln  gave  the  pass  in 
these  words: 

"  Let  us  close  our  eyes  and  let  them 
pass  unnoticed/' 

1  As  Lincoln  did  not,  in  his  days  of  military 
autocracy,  pretend  to  any  military  knowledge, 
his  inconsistency  with  tradition  is  pardonable, 
but  the  time-honored  rule  is  Scriptural:  "No 
man  that  warreth  entangleth  himself  with  the 
affairs  of  this  life."  (Second  Epistle  of  Paul  to 
Timothy,  ii,  4.) 


Xtncolnics  189 

They  Ought  to  Know. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  great  conflict, 
surmises  upon  the  length  of  time  to  which 
the  war  might  be  protracted  were  based 
on  estimates  of  the  hostile  strength.  On 
being  asked  point  blank  what  he  thought 
were  the  forces  of  the  Confederates,  the 
President  replied  offhand: 

"  The  Confederates  have  some  1,200,- 
000  in  the  field." 

"  Is  it  possible !  how  did  you  find  that 
out?  " 

"  Why,"  said  Lincoln,  "  every  Union 
general  I  ever  heard  tell — when  he  has 
been  '  licked  ' — says  the  rebels  outnum- 
bered him  three  or  four  to  one;  now,  we 
have  at  the  present  time  about  400,000 
men,  and  three  times  that  number  would 
be  1,200,000,  wouldn't  it?" 

The  Bible— the  Best  Gift  to  Man. 

"  It  [the  Bible]  is  the  best  gift  which 
God  has  ever  given  to  man.  All  the 


igo  lincolnics 

good  from  the  Saviour  of  the  world  is 
communicated  to  us  through  this  book. 
But  for  that  book,  we  could  not  know 
right  from  wrong.  All  those  truths  de- 
sirable for  men  are  contained  in  it." 
On  the  presentation  of  a  Bible  to  the 

President   by   the   colored   people   of 

Baltimore,  July  4,  1864. 


The  Cave  of  Adullam. 

After  Lincoln  was  renominated  in  1864 
General  Fremont,  who,  because  of  a 
grievance,  had  resigned  from  the  army, 
also  ran  for  the  Presidency.  An  inter- 
locutor having  referred  to  his  strength, 
the  President  opened  the  Bible  at  the 
First  Book  of  Samuel,  and  read: 

"  And  every  one  in  distress  and  in  debt, 
and  discontented,  gathered  themselves 
unto  him,  and  he  became  captain  over 
them,  and  there  were  with  him  about  four 
hundred  men." 


Xfncolnfcs  191 

A  Little  Man  for  a  Big  Business. 

At  the  second  inauguration  of  Presi- 
dent Lincoln,  in  1865,  there  was  pointed 
out  to  him  a  famous  little  lad  who  played 
in  the  band  of  the  Germantown  Hospital 
as  post  drummer,  Harry  W.  Stowman, 
aged  eleven,  "  the  Infant  Drummer "  of 
various  theatrical  advertisements.  The 
President  was  always  fond  of  children — 
but  then,  what  that  is  good  was  he  not 
fond  of  ? — and  had  the  prodigy  brought  to 
him.  He  caught  the  little  fellow  up  in 
his  arms  and,  kissing  him,  said: 

"  You  are  a  very  little  man  to  be  in 
this  big  war  business." 

( The  editor  well  remembers  "  the  In- 
fant Drummer."  He  was  a  standing  at- 
traction in  the  theatre  at  Barnum's  Mu- 
seum, New  York  City,  called  "  the  lecture 
room,"  in  order  not  to  offend  the  unco 
guid.  When  a  tune  was  being  played  by 
the  band  he  would  execute  a  drum  solo 
which  went  far  to  confirm  the  opinion  of 


ig2  Xincolnics 

a  certain  German  drum  performer,  who 
esteemed  it  the  greatest  of  musical  instru- 
ments. How  his  little  hands  could  get 
so  great  a  volume  of  sound  out  of  the 
hollow  sphere  still  remains  a  mystery.) 

Slipping  down  Unbeknownst. 

After  the  capitulation  of  General  Lee, 
in  April,  1865,  the  members  of  the  Con- 
federate Cabinet  scattered  in  all  Southern 
directions.  General  Wilson,  to  whom 
Macon  had  surrendered,  was  chasing  the 
President  of  the  ex-Confederate  States, 
who  had  not  a  last  ditch  for  hiding.  He 
asked  for  instructions  in  the  dilemma — 
should  he  capture  the  fugitive  or  let  him 
escape?  Grant  referred  in  person  to  his 
Chief,  who  said: 

"This  reminds  me  of  a  story: 

"  There  was  once  an  Irishman  who  had 

signed    a    Father    Mathews's    temperance 

pledge.     A    few    days    later,    he    became 

terribly  thirsty,  and  finally  applied  to   a 


Xtncolntcd  193 

bartender  in  a  saloon  for  a  glass  of  lemon- 
ade; and  while  it  was  being  mixed,  leaned 
over  and  whispered  to  him: 

"  '  An'  could  n't  yees  put  a  little  whis- 
key into  it,  all  unbeknownst  to  mesilf  ?  ' 

"  Now,  General,  if  Jeff  can  get  away 
unbeknownst  to  us,  I  shall  be  glad." 

Pluck  a  Thistle  and  Plant  a 
Flower. 

In  the  spring  of  1865,  a  number  of 
men  who  had  resisted  the  draft  in  west- 
ern Pennsylvania  were  pardoned  in  a 
batch,  by  the  President.  His  friend  Mr. 
J.  H.  Speed,  who  had  heard  the  touching 
pleas  of  two  women  petitioners  in  the 
case,  observed  that  he  wondered  why  the 
President  stood  the  anguish  of  such 
pleadings  when  he  was,  at  heart,  so 
sensitive. 

"  I  have,  in  that  order/'  said  Lincoln, 
"  made  people  happy  and  alleviated  the 
distress  of  many  a  poor  soul  whcin  I 


i94  Xincolnicd 

never  expect  to  see.  Speed,  die  when  I 
may,  I  want  it  said  of  me  by  those  who 
know  me  best,  that  I  always  plucked  a 
thistle  and  planted  a  ilower,  when  I 
thought  a  flower  would  grow." 

America  the  Treasury  of  the 
World. 

"  Tell  the  miners  from  me  that  their 
prosperity  is  the  prosperity  of  the  na- 
tion; and  we  shall  prove  that  we  are  in- 
deed the  treasury  of  the  world." 

President  Lincoln  to  Schuyler  Colfax, 
April,  1865. 

The  Grip  of  an  Honest  Man. 

During    the    Civil    War,    Lord    X 

made  himself  notorious  by  his  persistent 
support  of  the  lost  cause,  in  spite  of  the 
Queen's  imposition  of  neutrality  upon  her 
subjects.  He  upheld  the  building  of 
privateers  on  the  Mersey,  the  attempts  to 
float  the  cotton  loan  in  Lombard  Street, 


Xincolnicd  195 

and  the  frenetic  canards  in  the  hostile 
press.  Notwithstanding  this  conduct, 
when  the  last  shot  was  fired,  he  presented 
himself  at  the  White  House  to  participate 
in  the  public  reception,  and  to  receive  one 
of  the  hearty  hand-shakes  for  which  the 
President  was  famed.  The  host  knew 
all  about  this  alien  supporter  of  the  Con- 
federacy, but  with  his  most  affable  smile 
he  extended  his  hand  to  the  one  eagerly 
advanced.  It  was  without  any  warning, 
however,  unless  his  conscience  misgave 
him,  that  the  Briton  felt  his  knuckles 
crushed  together  in  the  Herculean  grip. 
The  disabled  nobleman  withdrew  his  hand 
as  quickly  as  possible  and  so^n  withdrew 
in  person,  greatly  to  the  amusement  of 
those  who  suspected  the  effective  punish- 
ment given  by  the  Eagle's  talon. 

The  Lincoln  Grip. 

It  was  remarked  with  wonder  that  at 
the  end  of  the  public  receptions  in  the 
Executive  Mansion,  when  all  the  world 


196  Xincolntcs 

could  clasp  the  President's  hand,  he  would 
respond  as  forcibly  to  the  last  comer  as  to 
the  first.  Questioned  upon  this  singular 
fact,  Lincoln  explained: 

"  The  hardships  of  my  early  life  gave 
me  strong  muscles." 

Fooling  the  People. 

"  You  may  fool  all  of  the  people  some 
of  the  time,  and  some  of  the  people  all  of 
the  time;  but  you  cannot  fool  all  of  the 
people  all  of  the  time." 

The  Lord's  Judgments  are  True  and 
Righteous. 

"  Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we 
pray,  that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may 
speedily  pass  away.  Yet  if  God  will  that 
it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by 
the  bondman's  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk, 
and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with 
the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn 


Xtncolnfcs  197 

with  the  sword;  as  was  said  three  thous- 
and years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said, 
'  The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and 
righteous  altogether.'  " 

Second   Inaugural    Address,    1865. 

11  Let  Us  Judge  Not  Lest  We  Be 
Judged." 

This  was  the  sacred  text  with  which 
Lincoln  rebuked  the  persons  who  clam- 
ored "  We  '11  hang  Jeff  Davis  to  a  sour 
apple  tree ! "  when  the  ex-President  of 
the  crushed  Southern  Confederacy  was 
captured  at  Irwinsville,  Ga.,  after  the  fall 
of  Macon. 

Divination  by  the  Bible. 

On  the  second  inauguration  day  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  March  4,  1865,  the 
gentleman  who  handed  the  Bible  to  the 
twice-chosen  advocate  of  the  people  noted 
the  place  where  the  open  book  was  kissed. 
The  passage  denoted,  according  to  the 


198  Xincointcd 

hallowed  Sortes  Biblia,  the  speedy  quell- 
ing of  the  Rebellion,  namely,  Isaiah  v., 
26,  27: 

"And  he  will  lift  up  an  ensign  to  the 
nations  from  far,  and  will  hiss  unto  them 
from  the  end  of  the  earth;  and  behold, 
they  shall  come  with  speed  swiftly ;  "  and 
so  on. 

The  Modern  Prometheus. 

In  a  conversation  with  Senator  Clark 
(N.  H.)  the  President  observed  of  office- 
seekers  : 

"  It  seems  as  if  every  visitor  darted  at 
me,  and  with  finger  and  thumb  carried 
off  a  portion  of  my  vitality!  Of  twenty 
applicants,  I  make  nineteen  enemies !  " 

Seven  Eighths  Living  on  the  Other 
Eighth. 

The  Tite  Barnacles  in  our  midst  were 
thus  characterized  by  Lincoln: 

"Sitting  here    [in  the  White   House], 


Xincolnica  199 

where  all  the  avenues  of  public  patronage 
come  together  in  a  knot,  it  does  seem  to 
me  that  our  people  are  fast  approaching 
the  point  where  it  can  be  said  that  seven 
eighths  of  them  are  trying  to  find  out 
how  they  may  live  at  the  expense  of  the 
other  eighth/' 

To  Senator  Clark   (N.  H.),  1865. 

"Love  Thine  Enemies!" 

The  Marquis  of  Chambrun,  who  was  in 
the  Presidential  party  on  a  trip  outside 
the  capital,  as  they  neared  the  city  on 
their  return,  heard  Mrs.  Lincoln  observe 
with  bitterness: 

"  That  city  is  filled  with  our  enemies !  " 

Her  husband  promptly  reproved  her, 
saying: 

"  Enough !  we  must  never  speak  of 
that!" 

Saturday,  April  9,   1865. 

About  the  same  time,  when  guiding  the 
President  through  the  Washington  hospi- 


200  Zincolnica 

tals,  Dr.  Jerome  Walker,  of  Brooklyn, 
turned  him  from  a  ward  containing  pris- 
oners, saying: 

"They  are   rebels." 

Wherepon  he  was  corrected  with  the 
words : 

"  You  mean  they  are  Confederates." 

The  Vast  Future  for  America, 

"  There  are  already  among  us  those 
who,  if  the  Union  be  preserved,  will  live 
to  see  it  contain  two  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  of  population.  The  struggle  of 
to-day  is  not  altogether  for  to-day;  it  is 
for  a  vast  future  also." 

Lincoln's  Last  Act  Was  of  Grace. 

It  was  the  afternoon  of  the  mournful 
day  of  April  14,  1865. 

A  senator  called  at  the  Executive  Man- 
sion to  confer  with  the  President,  to  whom 
news  was  pouring  in  that  might  make  him 
take  back  his  lugubrious  saying  that  "  he 


lincolntcd  201 

would  never  know  peace  again."  The 
Senator  was  J.  B.  Henderson  of  Missouri, 
and  he  was  speaking  in  behalf  of  one 
Vaughn,  a  soldier  in  the  regiment  of  Col- 
onel Green  of  the  Confederate  Army. 
When  the  cause  was  lost  Colonel  Green 
had  instructed  this  soldier  to  carry  letters 
to  his  family.  The  courier  was  captured, 
tried  and  sentenced  as  a  spy,  and  despite 
two  re-trials  was  under  the  shadow  of  the 
death  penalty.  The  President  listened 
to  the  suitor,  who  pointed  out  that  at  last 
the  war  was  decidedly  at  an  end: 

"  This  pardon,  therefore,  should  be 
granted  in  the  interest  of  peace  and 
conciliation." 

The  President  fully  agreed  and  said: 
"  Go  to  Stanton  and  tell  him  this  man 
must  be  released." 

But  the  Secretary  of  War,  who  often 
persisted  in  his  opposition  to  his  chief, 
was  violently  incensed  and  more  than  us- 
ually obdurate.  When  the  repulsed  ad- 
vocate returned  empty-handed  to  the 


202  Xtncolnfcd 

President,  the  latter  was  dressed  for  the 
visit  to  Ford's  Theatre.  At  once  he  wrote 
an  order  to  the  same  effect  as  his  verbal 
message,  saying  to  Mr.  Henderson: 

"  I  think  this  will  have  precedence  over 
Stanton !  " 

It  was  an  unconditional  release  and 
pardon — the  last  official  act  of  the  Presi- 
dent was  one  of  grace.  Cromwell  said  on 
his  death-bed:  "  If  once  in  grace  is  al- 
ways in  grace,  then  am  I  safe !  " 


